Talk:Community Wishlist/W372

Wish Received: Multiple Watchlists Feature

Hello @Goneln60,

Thanks for submitting your wish: “Multiple Watchlists”.

We’ve received your request and are currently reviewing it. We're also checking with the product team to identify who would be best positioned to look into the feasibility and scope of this feature.

Appreciate your clear description and the linked background, that helps a lot.

--ARamadan-WMF (talk) 18:14, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello @GoneIn60,

Thanks so much for sharing your idea.

We checked internally, and while it's a great suggestion, it's currently not technically feasible because of database limitations. Given the complexity, this wish isn’t prioritized for now, but we appreciate you taking the time to bring it forward.

Thanks again for your contribution!

--ARamadan-WMF (talk) 14:00, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Well, it was worth a shot! Thank you so much for taking the time to review the request and for the prompt follow-up. Hopefully one day something like it will be feasible. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 15:07, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind message and understanding.

We really appreciate community members like you who take the time to share ideas and help us think about ways to improve the experience. Hopefully in the future, as technical possibilities evolve, ideas like yours will become more feasible.

Thanks again for your thoughtful contribution!

--ARamadan-WMF (talk) 11:43, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

@ARamadan-WMF This would be incredibly useful. Would it be possible just to have a provision to save multiple watchlists in the RAW format on the website, and restore any at will? I am looking at doing this offline but I really do not want to remove my full watchlist from Wikipedia lest I lose it. That seems to me like it should not present any technical challenges.

I.e., right now a user could take the RAW watchlist and save it to a file in their directory (this would be public which might not be preferable but just to illustrate). They could then have another page with another RAW which they swap in at will. Automating this process shouldn't interfere with anything else? Or is there simply not room in the database entry for each user to store another copy of a watchlist and no possibility of adding such? DIYeditor (talk) 04:53, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Hello @DIYeditor,

Thank you for sharing this thoughtful idea, it's a creative workaround that could help users manage multiple sets of watched pages without major backend changes.

You're right that being able to export, save, and restore watchlists manually (or even through a simplified interface) could offer some flexibility, especially for power users. While your suggestion may sound technically lighter than a fully integrated multiple watchlist system, we'd still want to check with engineers about feasibility, potential risks (like data loss or confusion from swapping lists), and whether something like this could be safely offered in the interface or as a supported tool.

I’ll make sure to pass your perspective along to the product managers who were involved in evaluating this wish.

Thanks again for contributing to the conversation and helping us think through possible solutions! ARamadan-WMF (talk) 11:48, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Update, although we won't be working on a feature that allows to build multiple watchlists, we are about to release a way to assign labels to watchlists, might this resolve some of the issues you experience with watchlists? It's is in draft documentation here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Watchlist_Labels KSiebert (WMF) (talk) 15:08, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, looks awesome. I tried it out. DIYeditor (talk) 06:46, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

+1

Just one of many people who want multiple watchlists. Phab ticket T3492 dates from 2016 and the issue has featured in many of the Wishlists gaining many votes. The Phab ticket has a list with stats.

We also have another Wishlist item for Community Wishlist/Wishes/Watchlist highlighting which is a way to label entries in the One Big Watchlist for subsequent highlighting or filtering.

Either approach is valid and "under the hood" they could probably involve the same database changes. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 14:58, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Hello @GhostInTheMachine,

Thanks for your comment. I’ve already shared your point, that this is a long-standing and widely supported request—with one of our engineers, who also provided some background on the history of this wish.

I truly hope a solution becomes feasible in the future.

Appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. ARamadan-WMF (talk) 12:12, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Watchlist Labels

Please check out this feature https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Watchlist_labels which should resolve some of your concerns, I am therefore changing the status of your wish to "done". Let us know about any doubts! KSiebert (WMF) (talk) 12:12, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

I think this probably speaks on behalf of quite a few editors from past discussions...but a HUGE THANK YOU! This solution provides a simple way to organize and filter busy watchlists, which was the core concern. I've tried it out, and it is working great! -- GoneIn60 (talk) 22:01, 2 June 2026 (UTC)