Five apps and services besides RunGap come up when you look for a way to get workouts into Garmin Connect, and they differ in what they read, whether they write to Garmin Connect at all, and whether they set a device identity. By their makers’ own statements, RunGap, SyncMyTracks and Nabe write to Garmin Connect, FitnessSyncer says it cannot, and only RunGap and Nabe document an option that makes the upload name a Garmin device.
How do the six compare?
No two of them cover the same ground, and the table picks no winner. Every cell is the maker’s statement on its own website, help centre or store listing, read on 30 October 2026; where the maker says nothing, the cell says “no statement”. Nabe is our app.
| Sources (maker’s statement) | Writes to Garmin Connect | Sets a device identity | Platform | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RunGap | 47 services, among them Wahoo, Apple Health, Strava, Zwift and Garmin Connect | yes, with the Swag Bag subscription | an option, see below | iPhone, iPad, Mac with Apple M1 or later | free, Swag Bag CHF 4.00 a quarter or CHF 14.00 a year (Swiss App Store) |
| HealthFit | Apple Health and Apple Watch | no statement; exports FIT, GPX and CSV files | no statement | iPhone, iPad | CHF 6.00, optional supporter purchases (Swiss App Store) |
| SyncMyTracks | 15 services, among them Garmin Connect, Strava, Polar Flow and Suunto App; files as GPX or TCX | yes | no statement | Android | CHF 3.20, free trial version with ads (Google Play, Switzerland) |
| FitnessSyncer | among others Wahoo, Apple Health, Strava, Garmin Connect (read only) | no: “You cannot publish any data to this service at this time.” | no statement | web, iOS, Android | free tier, Pro USD 4.99 a month or USD 49.99 a year |
| tapiriik | 17 services, among them Garmin Connect, Strava, TrainingPeaks and Dropbox | syncs “between” the listed services, Garmin Connect included | no statement; says it never modifies activities | web | manual sync free, automatic sync USD 2 a year |
| Nabe | Wahoo, Apple Health, FIT files you import | yes | yes, switch off by default | iPhone | 10 transfers free, then CHF 4.00 a month or CHF 25.00 a year |
Sources, all read on 30 October 2026: RunGap’s list of supported services, its page on using Garmin Connect and its App Store listing; HealthFit’s App Store listing, since its own domain no longer leads to the app; the SyncMyTracks website and its Google Play listing; FitnessSyncer’s home page, its Garmin Connect page and its pricing; the tapiriik home page and its FAQ; for Nabe, this website.
What does RunGap say about its device option?
RunGap documents the reason for it, not what it writes. RunGap’s help article Training Effect not calculated by Garmin Connect, updated on 5 January 2026 and read on 30 October 2026, says that around 20 December 2023 Garmin “disabled the automatic calculation of Training Effect for workouts uploaded to Garmin Connect with bogus Garmin device information”, that RunGap has it “working again for cycling workouts in RunGap version 2.114”, and that it knows no way for other workout types. For cycling, the workout must contain the necessary information, such as heart rate and power, and you need an active device capable of Training Status. The name of the setting, “Fake Garmin Devices” under “Advanced Settings” for “Garmin Connect”, appears on that page only in a reply from the article’s author account on 14 March 2024, not in the article itself. Which device RunGap writes into the file, the page does not say.
Why does the device identity decide?
Because it is the part of the file Garmin looks at to decide whose recording a ride is. We measured it on a ride from a Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM: uploaded as Wahoo wrote it, Garmin Connect showed no Training Effect and no training load on 12 September 2026; with the identity of our Forerunner 570 written in, 16 bytes changed out of 227’041, Garmin listed the same ride as a recording of the watch, with an aerobic Training Effect of 4.3, an anaerobic Training Effect of 2.3 and a training load of 206, read on 30 October 2026. We did not measure whether this training load went into Training Status and acute load on the watch. Nothing you rode changes in the process. The full comparison is in what changes in a FIT file when Nabe sends it to Garmin, and why the device decides is in why an uploaded ride does not count toward Training Status.
Which one fits which case?
That depends on where your rides start. On 30 October 2026 the makers’ statements split like this: for workouts from an Apple Watch, HealthFit reads Apple Health but names no upload to Garmin Connect, while RunGap and Nabe name both; for rides from a Wahoo, RunGap, FitnessSyncer and Nabe name Wahoo as a source, and of those three, FitnessSyncer says it cannot write to Garmin Connect. Garmin’s own route for any file is the import page, described in how to import a FIT file into Garmin Connect; the case of the Apple Watch is in how to get Apple Watch workouts into Garmin Connect.
What does Nabe do differently from RunGap?
Two things we can show from our own code and measurements. Nabe writes the identity of your own watch, read from your Garmin Connect device list or from a file the watch recorded, and on 13 September 2026 both sources gave the same four values for the same Forerunner 570. And it checks Garmin Connect for the same ride before every upload: on 587 real rides, comparing all available durations removed 11 false “missing” rides, as described in how to avoid duplicate rides. Garmin has no official way to set a device identity, and its list of partner platforms does not mention it.