How to Export Your Fitbit Data Now That It Lives in Google Health
Which route applies depends on your login: Google Takeout with Google Health ticked, or the old Fitbit Data Export page. Plus single workouts as .tcx files, scheduled exports, and what to check before closing anything.
To export Fitbit data today, you first need to know which kind of login you have, because Google's help page now gives two different sets of instructions. If you sign in with a Google Account, the full copy comes out through Google's general download tool, with Google Health ticked. If you still sign in with an original Fitbit login, the old Data Export page on Fitbit's website still does the job. Single workouts with a map come out separately, one at a time, from the phone app.
Which instructions apply to you?
Fitbit's app is now called Google Health, and Google has been moving Fitbit accounts over to Google Accounts. Most of the guides that rank for this question were written before that, so they describe one route: a Data Export page on fitbit.com. That route is now only half the answer.
Google's own page, How do I export my Google Health data?, splits it like this:
- You sign in with a Google Account. Use Google's "download your data" tool and make sure Google Health is selected.
- You still sign in with your original Fitbit email and password. Use the Data Export page in your Fitbit settings, which offers a full archive or a recent selection.
If you are unsure, open the app and look at the account it shows. A Gmail address, or one you use to sign in to other Google services, means the first route. The same page also carries a line worth reading before anything else: data isn't available for deleted accounts. If you plan to close the account, export first.
Exporting everything with a Google Account
This is the route most people will now be on, and it runs through the same tool Google uses for Gmail, Photos and everything else. Google's guide to downloading your Google data covers it in full. The short version:
- Sign in to your Google Account and open the Google Takeout page.
- Every Google product you use starts ticked. Untick everything except Google Health, unless you want the rest too.
- Choose a delivery method: an emailed download link, or a copy dropped into Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box.
- Choose a file type (zip or tgz) and a maximum archive size, then create the export.
- Wait for the email, then download.
Three of those choices are easy to get wrong.
Pick zip. Google notes that tgz files may need extra software to open on Windows, and there is no benefit to them here.
The size setting does not trim your data. If your history is bigger than the maximum you choose, Google splits it into several archives, and you need every one of them. Years of all-day heart rate can run large, so if two or three files arrive, download them all before opening any.
And if you pick Drive, the archive counts against your Drive storage, so check there is room for it first.
How long it takes depends on how much is in the account. Google puts it at anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, and says most people get the link the same day. Downloading does not delete anything from Google's servers, so there is no harm in doing it twice.
One option most guides skip: under export type, you can choose scheduled exports instead of a one-time archive. That makes a fresh archive every two months for one year, starting immediately. If you want a running backup while you keep wearing the watch, it is the closest thing Google offers to one. Just note the date it was set up, because after a year it stops.
Exporting with an old Fitbit login
If you never moved the account, the original Fitbit data export page is still the one Google points to. There are two options on it, and they do different jobs.
The full archive. Sign in to the Fitbit settings page with your Fitbit login, open Data Export, and under "Export Your Account Archive" choose Request Data. An email arrives at the address on the account asking you to confirm. Once you confirm and the archive is built, a second email links back to the Data Export page, where you download it. Google warns that a large history can take up to a few days to build. Check the address on the account first, because both emails go there and nowhere else.
On a Fitbit family account, the archive holds a separate folder for each child account.
The recent selection. On the same Data Export page, "Export a selection of your Fitbit data" lets you choose a time period, the kinds of data and a file format, and downloads straight away. It is built for a recent window, not years of history. Use it for a quick look at last month in a spreadsheet; use the full archive for anything you mean to keep.
How do you export a single Fitbit workout?
To export a Fitbit workout on its own, you need one recorded with GPS, and it is saved from the phone, one session at a time. In the Google Health app, open the Fitness tab, tap the activity, tap More, then Export, and share or save the file.
What comes out is a .tcx file, short for Training Center XML. It is an older text format for training sessions that holds the route, laps, distance and heart rate, and most running, cycling and mapping apps can read it. It holds less detail than the .fit files many other watches write, but for a Fitbit run it is what you get. The guide to what each export file type can carry lays .tcx out next to .fit, .gpx, .csv and .json.
This is handy for moving one race or one long ride somewhere else. It is the wrong tool for moving a history: a year of runs is a year of taps. For that, use the full archive and pull the sessions out of it.
Exporting is not the same as syncing
If the reason you want your Fitbit data is to see it in another app on an Android phone, you may not need an export at all. Google Health can share data with Health Connect, Android's on-phone store that apps read from and write to. Google's page on using Health Connect with the Google Health app sets out what it needs: Android 9 or newer, and an adult Google Account. An old Fitbit login cannot connect, which is one more reason the account type matters.
Setting it up is done from Google Health, under Connections, then Partner apps. You choose which kinds of data to share, and then, separately, whether Google Health may reach older data and keep syncing in the background. That second question is easy to tap past, and it decides how much of your history and how much of tomorrow actually moves.
Each app on the other side has its own permissions, too. Google's troubleshooting advice is that for data to move, one app has to be allowed to write that kind of data to Health Connect and the other has to be allowed to read it. When a sync looks broken, those two switches are usually the reason.
Health Connect is about what happens from now on. It only holds what apps put into it, and a newly connected app sees a limited stretch of history unless it asks for more, as the explainer on what Health Connect does and does not do covers. For the years before, you still want the archive.
Check the archive before you rely on it
An export that looks complete and is not is worse than none, because you only find out once the account is gone. Ten minutes covers most of it.
- Count the files. If Takeout split your history, confirm every part downloaded and unzipped. A missing part looks like a gap in the middle of your history, not an error.
- Find the oldest date. Open the folder for steps or sleep and look for the earliest file or row. It should be roughly when you first wore the watch.
- Spot-check one day you remember. A race, a long walk, a bad night's sleep. If that day's numbers match what the app showed, the rest usually do too.
- Look for the scores, not just the readings. Raw readings like steps, heart rate and sleep times are what exports are built around. Scores and summaries the app worked out for you may be missing or laid out differently. If a particular score matters, find it in the archive before deleting anything, and take a screenshot of its chart if you cannot.
- Keep the original. Unzip a copy to work with and keep the archive as it arrived. It is the only version that does not depend on an app reading it correctly.
The honest limit
Every route here gives you a copy of your data on the day you asked for it. Nothing in it updates, and nothing promises another app can read it: an app can import a .tcx run perfectly and have no idea what to do with a folder of daily heart-rate files. Before you rely on a move, check what the receiving app says it imports. And the deleted-account line from Google's page is the one that cannot be undone, so the order is always export, check, then close. If where your data lives is part of why you are moving, the page on how a private fitness app handles your data sets out what to look for.
Adonae reads Health Connect, Intervals.icu and Fitbit, and collapses the duplicate sessions that arrive when more than one of them is on. Get it for Android.
