Nope. Just no. How is it possible that after EIGHT YEARS of people asking how to import data, does Garmin still not provide proper instructions/ability?

1916691 2 months ago

I've had a FitBit for a long time. I don't want to lose all that data. Ostensibly, Garmin allows you to import FitBit data.

Holy crap is that not true. The instructions simply do not work. After scouring through forum posts from 8 years ago, I recognize that Garmin doesn't like the format that FitBit exports. Now, I'm a smart guy... I could write a script to reformat the THOUSANDS of files to the format Garmin likes, but:

1) It is only ever going to work for a tiny subset of the data: steps, weight, a little bit more. No sleep, no HRV, no heart rate (I think)... why the *** not? That's all data Garmin tracks!

2) For some stupid reason, it will only take daily totals, not minute-by-minute data. That loss of granularity is concerning for anyone tracking trends.

I hate that FitBit was sold to Google and Google promptly discontinued everything good and soldier on with their < 24 hour battery life Pixel crap... but the data is far more important to me than the actual device. FAR more.

So I have to return this otherwise very nice Garmin watch and "downgrade" to a discontinued FitBit while I wait for the Pixel to have a reasonable battery.

OR until Garmin understands that some people really value their data. (psst... Garmin should do. That stuff's valuable)

0 trux 2 months ago

As for importing the weight, the following format works (it is the original FitBit file format, not the one Google introduced later):

Body
Date,Weight,BMI,Fat
"2022-11-03","71.6","22.6","14.4"

There can be multiple lines of data, but the first 2 header lines appear just once. Use a plain-text editor such as Notepad for creating the file. Do not use any rich-text editors like Word or Wordpad. And avoid Excel.

As for importing other data, there are some examples on the forum too.

0 5069509 26 days ago in reply to trux

Your answer is not detailed enough for most people to understand.

The 'origonal' Fitbit file exports have not existed since mid 2024 when fitbit was essentially discountinued and replaced with Google. The only way to export Fitbit data now is via Google, and it comes in a format incompatible with Garmins import feature. Garmins instructions DO NOT WORK because they are out of date.

Since Google/Fitbit does not export data in a format that can be imported to Garmin – it has to be manually converted into a CSV file that looks like the old fitbit files used to (the format you mentioned above.

The only way that can be done is writing a script, paying a 3rd party software to do it, or copy-pasting your data manually, which will probably take until the year 2098 if you have years of data to go through.

Like the OP mentioned, writing a script to reformat all your data into a CSV file that match Garmin's import capabilities is pretty time consuming, and still results in tonnes of data loss. Most people won't have the know how to bother, and Garmin's 'how to' is out of date and will not work for anyone following it. There is no current solution to simply export and import Fitbit data with few clicks, and the instructions that say 'Export, then Import' are just flat out wrong.

The ONLY way for me to import my Fitbit data was using a Python script to convert it into a format Garmin would accept.

The data I imported is also just daily totals – it's pretty useless when you want things like heart rate minute to minute hour to hour, or those that just want to hit ""Export Data" and then "Import Data", which is what most everyday people want do do. Garmin does NOT OFFER it despite their help page claiming to do so.