Only through a file or an app in between, because Garmin Connect sends data to Apple Health but takes nothing back from it. You either export the workout as a FIT file and import it on the Garmin Connect website, or you let an app read the workout from Apple Health, build a file and upload it for you.
Does Garmin Connect read from Apple Health?
No. Garmin’s support page Sharing Your Garmin Connect Data With Apple Health, read on 30 October 2026, says that “Garmin Connect pushes data to Apple Health (limited by settings/device support) but doesn’t pull data from an Apple watch or Apple Health.” The same page lists 12 kinds of data that go the other way, from Garmin Connect into Apple Health, among them workouts, heart rate and steps, and notes that a workout’s GPS track is not written to Apple Health.
So an app has to read the workout from Apple Health itself. Nabe’s code asks Apple Health for read access to 7 types: workouts, heart rate, active energy, workout routes and three kinds of distance (cycling, walking and running, swimming).
Which ways lead into Garmin Connect?
Three, all of them through a file:
- Export and import by hand. An app on the iPhone that reads the workout from Apple Health saves it as a FIT file, and you import that file on the Garmin Connect website. Garmin’s steps are in how to import a FIT file into Garmin Connect.
- A sync app. An app reads your workouts in Apple Health, builds a file for each and uploads it to Garmin Connect. Which apps say they do this, and at what price, is in RunGap alternatives for Garmin Connect.
- Nabe. Nabe reads Apple Watch workouts from Apple Health, builds a FIT file and uploads it to Garmin Connect, with the duplicate check described in how to avoid duplicate rides.
Each way ends in Garmin Connect as an uploaded file, so Garmin’s list of partner platforms says nothing about any of them. Apple Health is not on that list, which named 7 platforms when we read it on 30 October 2026.
What can a FIT file built from Apple Health hold?
Less than a file from a bike computer, because it can only hold what Apple Health stores. This is an evaluation of Nabe’s code (FITWriter and HealthKitSource in the app’s source, read on 30 October 2026), not a measurement on a real Apple Watch: for each second at which Apple Health has a heart rate sample or a route point, Nabe writes one record with up to 4 fields, against 12 in a ride file from a Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM, which we read field by field:
| Field per record | Nabe, from Apple Health | Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM file |
|---|---|---|
| Heart rate | yes | yes |
| Latitude, longitude | yes | yes |
| Altitude | yes | yes |
| Speed, distance | no | yes |
| Power, cadence | no | yes |
| Grade, temperature | no | yes |
| Torque effectiveness, pedal smoothness | no | yes |
Besides the records, Nabe writes one lap and one session summary with start time, elapsed time, timer time, sport, distance, ascent, calories and average heart rate, where Apple Health has them, and marks an indoor ride as indoor cycling. Nabe reads no power and no cadence from Apple Health, so neither appears in the file.
Does the workout then count on my Garmin watch?
Not as a plain file, by everything Garmin documents and by our own measurement on a ride from another device. Apple Health is not on Garmin’s list of partner platforms, and a Wahoo ride that another app uploaded as a file showed no Training Effect and no training load on 12 September 2026. With the identity of our own Garmin watch, a Forerunner 570, in the file, the same ride got an aerobic Training Effect of 4.3, an anaerobic Training Effect of 2.3 and a training load of 206. We did not measure whether this training load went into Training Status and acute load on the watch. The details are in do Wahoo ELEMNT rides count toward Garmin training load?
What does Nabe write as the device?
A placeholder, until the upload. In Nabe’s code the file built from Apple Health names manufacturer “development”, product 0 and serial number 0 in two places, File ID and Device Info. With your watch’s identity switched on, Nabe fills these with your own watch’s values when it uploads to Garmin Connect; without it, the file goes as built. When Nabe writes to Apple Health, it never writes a watch identity.