Manual method
Request a copy of personal Garmin account data, including available fitness activity records.
- Open Garmin Account Data Management and sign in.
- Under Export Your Data, request the personal-data export.
- Wait for Garmin’s notification, download the supplied archive and keep every part.
- Extract a copy and identify activity files and account records.
Coverage and limitations: An account export is broader than an individual workout export. Preserve original activity formats; CSV summaries are not a replacement for route/sensor files.
Size and time to allow
Illustrative small / central / large case: 0.05 / 2 / 20 GB (decimal GB). These are planning assumptions, not a measured average per person. 2 GB models several years of FIT activity files plus daily measurements. High-frequency multisport recording can exceed this.
Preparation: Garmin says files typically take about 48 hours to prepare, but large accounts or busy periods can take up to 30 days. Download time is additional.
For the central 2 GB example, network transfer alone is approximately:
| Connection | Estimated transfer |
|---|---|
| 10 Mbps | 38.1 minutes |
| 50 Mbps | 7.6 minutes |
| 100 Mbps | 3.8 minutes |
Assumes 70% sustained use of the stated connection. Provider throttling, many small files, retries, local extraction and copying add time. For online backup use your upload speed. These are not estimates of the provider’s preparation queue. See calculation and large-file advice.
Store and verify the archive
An encrypted external drive is a practical main archive; a USB key can carry a copy if it has sufficient free space. Keep an additional encrypted copy on another device or private online backup, outside the source account’s sync folder. For health records, restrict access and avoid shared-family/public-link destinations; keep encryption recovery information separately.
Create garmin/YYYY-MM-DD/originals/, preserve the untouched download, and extract a separate working copy when needed. Allow extra free space for archive plus extraction; compressed text can expand far beyond twice its size. Record account/scope, export date, date coverage and missing items in a local README without passwords.
Count activities, check oldest/newest dates and open representative FIT/GPX-compatible files with a local viewer. Reopen a sample from the second copy before deleting or replacing any source. Storage choices and verification.
Sources and review
Public documentation was reviewed on 27 October 2026. No signed-in export or restoration was performed. Account options and availability can change; follow the current provider instructions.