How to use GPX Activity Compare
Getting your data out of Garmin Connect, and how each control on the page works.
← Back to app
1. Getting a GPX file out of Garmin Connect
On desktop (recommended — the most reliable path)
- Go to
connect.garmin.com and sign in.
- In the left-hand menu, click Activities → All Activities.
- Click the specific activity you want, to open its detail page.
- In the top-right corner of the activity page, click the gear/cog icon (⚙) —
on some screen sizes this shows as a three-dot menu (⋯) instead.
- Select Export to GPX from the dropdown.
- Your browser downloads a
.gpx file, usually named after the
activity or the date — that's the file you'll load into this tool.
On mobile
The Garmin Connect mobile app doesn't offer a direct "Export to GPX" button in
every version. Two workarounds:
- Open
connect.garmin.com in your phone's browser (not the app) and
follow the desktop steps above — the site is responsive and works the same way.
- In the app, open the activity and tap the share icon; on some versions
"Export to GPX" appears there directly or under "More options."
A GPX export contains GPS position, barometric elevation (if your device has that
sensor), and heart rate. It does not include cadence or power on
every device/export path — those extensions vary. If your file is missing cadence
or heart rate, this tool will simply show an empty line for that chart rather than
an error.
2. Activities panel
Each row represents one activity you're comparing.
| Control | What it does |
|---|
| Load GPX | Opens your file picker to choose a .gpx file for that row. |
| Name / label | Generated automatically from the activity's name or description
inside the GPX file, plus its start date and time — there's nothing to type in.
If the file has no name or description, it falls back to "Activity". |
| Color swatch | Click it to pick that activity's color on both charts and the route map. |
| Remove | Drops that activity from the comparison entirely. |
| + Add Activity | Adds another row — there's no limit on how many activities you can compare at once. |
3. Linked X-axis
This one control governs both charts at the same time — there's
intentionally no separate X-axis setting per chart, so the two views always line up.
- X axis: Time / Distance — switch whether the horizontal axis
represents elapsed minutes or cumulative distance. Useful for comparing, say,
heart rate "5 km into the run" across two activities of different lengths.
- X min / X max + Apply — crop both charts to a specific window,
e.g. minutes 10–20, or km 3–5.
- Auto — clears the manual range and goes back to fitting all
loaded data.
- Clear marker — removes the marker (see below) from both charts.
4. Left chart / Right chart
Two independent chart panels, side by side. Each has its own:
- Chart type — Route Map, Heart Rate, Cadence, Pace, or Elevation.
The two panels don't have to match — compare Heart Rate on the left against
Pace on the right, for instance.
- Y min / Y max + Apply / Auto — same pattern as the shared
X-axis, but per chart and per Y-axis, since BPM, steps/min, min/km, and meters
obviously don't share a scale.
Switching a panel's chart type automatically clears that panel's
manual Y-range, since a leftover range from a different chart type (say, a
heart-rate range of 60–180 mistakenly applied to a pace chart) would make the
new chart look broken rather than actually being broken.
5. The marker
Click and drag inside either chart to drop a marker and inspect a specific moment
of the activity.
- On a Heart Rate / Cadence / Pace / Elevation chart: a vertical
line appears, with a small dot and value label on each activity's line at that
position.
- On the Route Map: there's no time/distance axis to click on
directly, so the marker instead snaps to whichever trackpoint (on any activity's
route) is physically closest to where you clicked.
Whichever chart you drag in, both panels update together — the
marker isn't a pixel position, it's stored as one Time or Distance value shared by
the whole page. So dragging along a route on the map instantly moves the vertical
line on a Pace chart shown next to it, and vice versa.
6. Things worth knowing
- Cadence is multiplied by 2. Garmin often stores cadence as
steps-per-minute of a single leg; doubling it matches what Garmin Connect
displays as total cadence. If your device already reports the total, this will
overstate it — check one known activity against Garmin Connect if you're unsure.
- The Route Map isn't a real map. There are no streets, terrain,
or map tiles — it's a to-scale plot of latitude and longitude, corrected so the
shape isn't stretched, but nothing more.
- Nothing leaves your browser. GPX files are read locally by
your browser's JavaScript; this page makes no network requests at all, so it
works even with no internet connection once loaded.