Apple Health to Polar Flow: What Syncs and What Does Not

By Josep Mampel Marques, updated November 11, 2026

Apple Health and Polar Flow connect in one direction only: Polar's help says you can only sync data from the Polar Flow app to Apple Health, and syncing from Health to Polar Flow is not possible. So an Apple Watch workout cannot be pulled into Polar Flow through Apple Health. We found no official way to import old workouts from other services as training sessions either. What Polar does document is importing a route as a GPX or TCX file into Favorites. If you are moving away from Apple Watch, the safest plan is to keep your history as files: CSV for metrics and FIT for workouts, made with FitMigrate from your export.zip.

What syncs between Polar and Apple Health

Polar's page about connecting Flow with Apple Health describes how to turn on the Apple Health toggle in the Flow app's settings and choose the categories to share. It says the direction is Flow to Apple Health, and that is all it says about the other way round: Health to Flow is not possible. This matters if you wear a Polar device and an Apple Watch together, because only Polar's data flows into Apple Health, not the other way.

Importing routes into Polar Flow

Polar's route import page describes this procedure:

1. Export the route from a third-party service as a GPX or TCX file.
2. Log in to Polar Flow on the web and open Favorites from the icon at the top right.
3. Choose to import a route, drag the file in or browse for it, and start the upload.
4. If the file holds several routes, pick one, name it and confirm. The route is added to Favorites.
5. Sync it to your Polar device with FlowSync.

The limits Polar lists: only GPX or TCX files, a maximum of 25 MB, and long routes are reduced to 500 waypoints on some devices and 1500 on newer ones. The result is a route to follow, not a recorded training session with heart rate and a date. For past workouts that is not what most people want.

Where your Apple Watch GPX files are

An Apple Health export contains a GPX file for each outdoor workout that recorded a route, in the workout-routes folder inside the zip. See what is inside the export. In principle those files could be used with Polar's route import, since the format matches what Polar accepts. We have not tested that. Users reported invalid GPX route files after an iOS 14 update in an Apple Community thread, so a file that Polar rejects may be a damaged file rather than a Polar problem.

What FitMigrate produces

The FIT files follow Garmin's published FIT format, so any service that accepts FIT uploads can read them. Polar's documented routes import does not.

Practical plan if you switch to Polar

1. Export your Health data before you unpair or reset the Apple Watch. See how to export all Apple Health data.
2. Open the zip in FitMigrate, download all metrics you want as CSV and all workouts as FIT. Store both with the original zip.
3. Set up your Polar device and Flow account for new training. If you want Polar data in Apple Health, turn on the Apple Health toggle in Flow.
4. If you need an old route on your Polar watch, try the GPX file from the export with the route import and check how it looks.

Honest limits

• FitMigrate cannot send anything to Polar Flow. It makes files on your device.
• Nothing is uploaded; your data stays in the browser tab.
• Your old workouts will not appear in Polar's training history through the methods we could confirm.
• Polar's pages can change. Check them before you start.