How to sync Apple Watch runs to Strava

Many runners record with the Workout app on their Apple Watch, because it is fast, accurate and already there. Strava can pick those runs up on its own: they go from the watch to Health on your iPhone, and Strava uploads them from Health.

Turn on automatic uploads

1. Open Strava on your iPhone.
2. Tap You, then the gear for Settings.
3. Tap Manage Apps and Devices, then Health.
4. Tap Connect with Health if you have not yet. In the Apple Health sheet, allow Strava to read Workouts, heart rate and routes, then tap Allow.
5. Turn on Automatic Uploads.

Your next Workout app run appears in Strava once your iPhone has it, shortly after you finish. Opening the Strava app makes it happen sooner.

What comes across

Distance, duration, pace, heart rate, calories and the GPS route for outdoor runs. Strava builds splits and its own analysis from those. Indoor runs come across without a map, as they would anywhere.

Two limits from Strava:

• Only Apple's Workout app. A run that another app wrote to Health, such as Nike Run Club or a Garmin, is not uploaded from Health. Those apps have their own Strava connection.
• Only the last 30 days. Older runs cannot be imported this way.

Apple Watch run not showing in Strava?

Work down this list.

1. Check the run is in Health. Health app, Browse, Activity, Workouts. If the run is not there, the watch has not synced to the iPhone yet. Keep the iPhone nearby with Bluetooth on and wait a minute.
2. Check it came from the Workout app. Tap the run in Health and scroll to Source. Strava only takes runs whose source is your Apple Watch.
3. Import it by hand. In Strava, Settings, Manage Apps and Devices, Health, tap Import next to the run.
4. Look for a duplicate. If Strava says it imported the run but it is not in your feed, check your Strava activities for one at the same date and time, perhaps recorded by a second app. Strava refuses duplicates. Delete the other one and import again.
5. Check permissions. In the Health app, tap your profile picture, then Apps, then Strava, and make sure reading Workouts and Workout Routes is allowed. Then tap Connect with Health again in Strava.

Strava app on the watch, or the Workout app?

Both work. Strava's own watch app writes to Strava directly and, with Send to Health on, to Health too. The Workout app writes to Health first, which keeps your runs in your own records whatever you use later. Pick one per run. Starting both gives you the same run twice, in Strava and in Health.

Your runs stay in Health

Whichever way you send runs to Strava, the Workout app keeps the original in Apple Health. That is your own copy, on your phone, with no account behind it. Strava is good at the social side. For your own totals across every watch and app, Health is the better source.