[GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum [Guide]There are two ways you can achieve your aim, but it depends on the one you prefer.
The first has been suggested already above. You can sweep the private key into a newly generated electrum wallet which is segwit by default with the latest version (version 4.1.2).
Note that:
- transaction fee will be required during sweeping
- the private key of the coin sweeped is not included among the private key of the electrum wallet, the coin will be sweeped into an address on the electrum wallet which will be stored on blockchain
I will also suggest sweeping because hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallet will be generated in which the coin is transfered to one of the addresses on the HD wallet.
The second is about importing the private key directly into electrum wallet, this can be the best option if you have many private keys you want to import because no fee is required, but no HD wallet is generated, only the wallet releted to the private keys imported will be generated, which means is it not HD wallet but only the addresses of the private key imported that will be generated. After successful importation, the wallet will synchronize with the blockchain and show you your bitcoin balance.
Importing your private keys into Electrum