Electrum Wallet FAQ

[Davidvictorson]

What does this warning on Electrum frequently asked questions mean.

In Electrum 2.0, you cannot import private keys in a wallet that has a seed. You should sweep them instead.

Can anyone explain to me why sweeping seems to be a better option than importing private key, assuming you agree with them. Is sweeping a safer and more secure option than importing private key because of computer viruses and keyloggers? Is this still applicable on their latest version Electrum-4.5.4?

[Charles-Tim]

Both are good, depending on how you want it. But according to what you quoted, it only just means that Electrum version 2.0, that you can only sweep and will not be able to import the private key. In higher versions, you can import the private key. Since I know Electrum in 2020, I can import private key.

The safety of you wallet depends on you in this regard.

[Zaguru12]

It’s probably because you can not directly import a Private key to a HD wallet (it uses seed and master private key instead) and you might have to go through the create a new wallet to do that. For your question I will say you should sweep the private key instead if you’re not going to receive funds on that address attached to that key again as this will transfer your bitcoin to your already existing deterministic wallet.

But from electrum latest versions you can still have the private keys imported into the wallet but you have to prephend so that you don’t recover the wrong address instead.

[hosseinimr93]

But according to what you quoted, it only just means that Electrum version 2.0, that you can only sweep and will not be able to import the private key. In higher versions, you can import the private key. Since I know Electrum in 2020, I can import private key.

It says that you can't import a private key into a wallet that has a seed. In versions older than 2.0, you could generate a HD wallet with a seed phrase and import a private key into that existing HD wallet.
Since the imported private key was not backed up by the seed phrase and that could make people lose their fund, that feature has been removed since the version 2.0

[nc50lc]

What does this warning on Electrum frequently asked questions mean.

In Electrum 2.0, you cannot import private keys in a wallet that has a seed. You should sweep them instead.

Can anyone explain to me why sweeping seems to be a better option than importing private key, assuming you agree with them.

The actual context isn't about the advantages or "Sweep" over "Import" since both has its separate use-cases.
It's just noted in the FAQ that there's no other option to import into an existing HD wallet so it's suggested to use sweep instead;
But just below it, there's an instruction on how to create an imported wallet to import the private keys instead of sweep.
Your link w/ highlight: electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#can-i-import-private-keys-from-other-bitcoin-clients

As an addition to the other replies, here's what they're talking about:
In not-so-old versions before v2.0, they included a warning about the dangers of importing a private key to an HD wallet;
v1.8.1 screenshot:


Then after 2.0, although the menu is still visible, it's grayed-out if the wallet isn't "[imported]";
v2.0 screenshot: