Polar, Garmin & Strava
Strava and Apple Health: how to sync your activities
Strava and Apple Health can talk to each other in both directions, but each direction does less than people expect. Activities from your Apple Watch can go up to Strava, and activities on Strava can come down to Health, yet a ride your bike computer recorded often arrives in Health without its route, or not at all. Here is how the connection works, why activities go missing, and how to get every Strava activity into Apple Health.
Short answer
In the Strava app, go to Settings ▸ Manage Apps and Devices ▸ Health and connect. Send to Health writes activities with their type, distance, time and calories, and the route for activities recorded in Strava; routes from activities recorded on other devices, such as a Garmin, are not sent. Automatic Uploads or Import bring Apple Workout activities from the last 30 days up to Strava, with heart rate if you allow it. To get every Strava activity into Health with route and heart rate, whatever recorded it, use an app such as Keho Strava Sync.
Connect Strava and Apple Health
- Open Strava and tap your profile, then the settings icon.
- Choose Manage Apps and Devices and tap Health.
- Tap Connect and allow the categories in the Health sheet. Turn on Workouts and Workout Routes in both directions, and Heart Rate if you want Strava to read it.
- Pick what you want: Send to Health for Strava activities going into Health, Automatic Uploads for Apple Watch workouts going up to Strava.
What each direction shares
| Direction | What goes across | What doesn’t |
|---|---|---|
| Strava ▸ Apple Health | Activity type, distance, time, calories; route for activities recorded in Strava | Routes of activities recorded elsewhere (Garmin, Zwift and others) |
| Apple Health ▸ Strava | Apple Workout activities from the last 30 days, heart rate, running power | Cadence; older workouts |
The gap matters most if Strava is where everything meets: the ride from your bike computer, the indoor session from Zwift, the run from your watch. On Strava they all look complete. In Apple Health some of them lack a route or heart rate, so every app that reads Health sees less of your training than Strava does.
Why activities go missing in Apple Health
- Send to Health is off, or Workouts and Workout Routes aren’t allowed in the Health sheet.
- The activity was recorded on another device, so its route stays on Strava.
- The activity was uploaded from Apple Health in the first place. It is already there and isn’t written back.
- Several sources write the same workout, for example your watch’s own app and Strava, and you look at a source that lost the tie. Check in the Health app under the category’s Data Sources & Access.
Every Strava activity in Apple Health
Keho Strava Sync connects your Strava account once and writes your Strava activities into Apple Health, whatever device recorded them, with route and heart rate. Workouts that are already in Health, for example from your Apple Watch, are not written a second time. It runs in the background and whenever you open Keho.
Keho then counts each activity in your statistics for every sport, from weekly totals and personal bests to heart-rate zones, uses it for training load and readiness, and matches it to your plan if you follow one. For older history, export your Strava archive and import the GPX or TCX files into Keho. To take a single workout the other way, see how to export a workout as GPX or FIT.
Common questions
Does Strava sync heart rate to Apple Health?
Strava’s own Send to Health writes the activity with type, distance, time and calories. Keho Strava Sync writes the activity with its heart rate and route.
Will connecting both create duplicate workouts?
It can, if the same workout reaches Health from two apps. Keep one source per workout type in the Health app’s Data Sources & Access list. Keho also collapses the same workout from several sources in its statistics.
Does Keho upload anything to Strava?
No. Keho reads from Strava and writes to Apple Health on your iPhone. More in workout statistics from Apple Health.
Source: Strava support, “Apple Health and Strava”, checked on 29 October 2026. Keho is an independent app and not affiliated with Strava, Inc.