Abstract: A method for automatic sleeve filling of a winding shaft on roll cutting and winding machines is provided in which, in an exemplified embodiment, in a first step at least two empty winding sleeves are slid onto a free end of a winding shaft so that the winding sleeves are adjacent to one another, in a second step the last winding sleeve slid on by a freely positionable fork piece of a freely programmable draw-off plate along the winding shaft is slid over the winding shaft until the last winding sleeve has reached a predetermined position, in a third step the next-to-last winding sleeve slid on is grasped by tongs freely positionable along the winding shaft and is slid over the winding shaft to the point where in a fourth step the fork piece can dip into the gap produced by the tongs so that the next-to-last winding sleeve is positionable along the winding shaft by the fork piece.