Devices and apps 3 MIN READ
Fitbit: export a run or walk as a TCX file
Fitbit exports GPS exercises as TCX, not GPX: Today, Exercise tile, the activity, three dots, Export as TCX file. Only exercises recorded with GPS can be exported. How to convert the TCX to GPX, and what Fitbit's full data export contains instead.
Fitbit exports a route as a TCX file, not a GPX. That is fine — a TCX carries the route, the time and the heart rate, and every tool that reads GPX reads TCX — but it means searching the app for "GPX" finds nothing. Here is where the button is, from Fitbit's own help.
In the Fitbit app
Today tab → the Exercise tile → tap the exercise that used GPS → the three dots → Export as TCX File. Then share it or save it to the phone.
On the web dashboard
Sign in to the Fitbit dashboard, open the exercise, View Details → the three dots → Export as TCX file. It downloads.
Only GPS exercises
Fitbit's help is explicit: TCX export is for exercises that used GPS. A run recorded from wrist movement alone, or a walk with the phone's GPS off, has no route to export, and the option is missing or the file is empty. If a TCX comes out empty, that is why — the route was never recorded, and no export will find it.
TCX to GPX
Most places take the TCX as it is: Strava, Garmin Connect, the viewer here and the editor. For a tool that insists on GPX, TCX to GPX converts it in the browser, keeping position, elevation and time. What a TCX file is if the format is new.
The full account export
Fitbit also offers an export of all your account data from its settings. That is the archive — steps, sleep, heart rate, exercise summaries — and not the way to get one route; the per-exercise TCX is.
Fitbit to Strava
Connect the accounts and new GPS exercises sync to Strava. For old ones, export the TCX and upload it on strava.com (how).
Then what
Any GPX, FIT or TCX opens in the viewer to check it, uploads to Strava (how), and goes into the editor to become a print of the route with the numbers from the file. The other watches and apps are in the device guides.
Questions people actually ask
- Does Fitbit export GPX?
- Not GPX — TCX. Fitbit's help says: in the app, Today, the Exercise tile, the exercise with GPS, three dots, Export as TCX file. On the web dashboard, View Details on the exercise, three dots, Export as TCX. A TCX opens everywhere a GPX does, and converts in seconds.
- How do I export a GPS exercise from Fitbit?
- In the Fitbit app: Today tab, Exercise tile, tap the exercise, tap the three dots, Export as TCX File. Then share or save the file. Only exercises that used GPS can be exported.
- Can you export Fitbit data?
- Yes, two ways: the per-exercise TCX described here, and a full account data export from Fitbit's settings, which gives the account's data as files but is not the way to get a single route.
- Why is my Fitbit TCX file empty?
- Because the exercise had no GPS: it was recorded from steps and heart rate, or with the phone's GPS off. Fitbit's TCX carries GPS data only for exercises that used GPS. The route was never recorded.
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