Using Garmin Connect with RunGap

Connecting your Garmin Connect Account

To connect your Garmin Connect account, select "Accounts & Settings" from the upper left menu and then "Garmin Connect." Next, enter your username and password and choose "Login." RunGap will now connect securely to your account and ask you if you would like to update your activities and friend feed. If you choose "Update" RunGap will start importing your activities and a list of your Garmin Connect connections’ activities right away. You can also choose "Disable" to leave importing disabled in case you need to tweak the settings or simply leave the connection in "Write Only" mode. You can enable and disable importing as you like later.

If you normally use Facebook or another service to connect to Garmin Connect, you may not remember your password. You can retrieve your password by visiting this link: http://connect.garmin.com/signin, hitting the (Forgot?) link  and entering your email address.

Importing your activities from Garmin Connect

RunGap will automatically start fetching your activities in the background as soon as you connect your account and they will soon start appearing in the "Activities" list (choose "Activities" from the menu). When the initial synchronization is complete, you can fetch new activities from Garmin Connect by dragging the list down or tapping the refresh button in the upper right corner in the "Activities" or "Friend Feed" lists.

Please note that RunGap will automatically skip duplicate activities based on starting time.

Sharing your activities on Garmin Connect

You can upload a single activity directly to Garmin Connect by opening it from the "Activities" list, tapping the "..." button in the upper right corner and choosing "Share." This will bring up a page where you can choose to share the activity to on or more of the most popular services including Garmin Connect along with an optional message. If the activity already exists on Garmin Connect, only the title and activity type is updated.

Similarly, you can upload all your activities directly to Garmin Connect by choosing "Share & Export" from the upper left menu and then "Garmin." RunGap will then upload all activities missing on Garmin Connect and update the titles and activity types for the rest. This may take a while the very first time, but RunGap will automatically skip previously uploaded activities which have not been modified and therefore subsequent exports will complete much faster.

If you need to upload a selection of activities, you can set a filter from the upper, right "..." menu to select workouts within a specific date range, with a special type etc.. Next, choose "Use Filter" and then "Share" from the upper, right "..." to share only the workouts matching by the filter

Finally you can use Auto Sharing to share new workouts as they are imported from other services.

Please note that the Swag Bag [1] is required in order to share activities directly to Garmin Connect.

Please also note that Garmin Connect will ignore steps uploaded as part of activities and not include them in your daily totals. Please refer to Exporting Steps and other Daily Metrics from Apple Health to Garmin Connect if you want to upload steps to Garmin Connect.

Exporting your Garmin Connect activities to other services

Similar to sharing your activities to Garmin Connect, you can share activities imported from Garmin Connect directly to other services such as Strava, Endomondo and dailymile. You can also export individual or all activities in standard formats such as TCX or GPX and transfer them either directly to other apps or via Dropbox or email. Please note that some export features require the Swag Bag [1].

Disconnecting your Garmin Connect Account

To disconnect your Garmin Connect account, select "Accounts & Settings" from the upper left menu and then "Garmin Connect." Next, choose "Forget" to disconnect the account. Activities as well as your connections’ activities, which have already been imported, will be preserved – but new activities will no longer be fetched from Garmin Connect.

Troubleshooting

If your workouts do not show up on Garmin Connect after sharing them, then please try to log on to the Garmin Connect website  and press the "Upload or Import Activity" button in the upper, right corner. If this prompts you to accept new terms then you should do so in order to fix the problem.

If you see the message "Garmin Connect service unreachable" it means that RunGap is unable to contact the Garmin Connect service. This is most likely a communications problem or a problem with the Garmin Connect service itself. Please check your Internet connection and try to connect using the Garmin Connect App  and the Garmin Connect website to verify your connection and the service.

The message "Garmin Connect login failed!" means that RunGap is unable to login to the Garmin Connect service. This is most likely a problem with your credentials or a problem with the Garmin Connect service itself. If you have changed your password you will need to "Forget" and then "Login" again from the "Garmin Connect" page under "Accounts & Settings." If you have lost your password you can retrieve it by visiting this link: http://connect.garmin.com/signin, hitting the (Forgot?) link  and entering your email address..

In case some of your activities are missing or accidentally deleted from RunGap, you can perform a "Resynchronize" operation to restore them.  To resynchronise, select "Accounts & Settings" from the upper left menu and then "Garmin Connect." Next, choose "Resynchronize".

For other problems, please contact [e-mail].

Data Liberation Score

The "Data Liberation Score" is a number in the range 1–5 where 1 is poor and 5 is best. The score indicates how easy it is to access and export your hard-earned workout data from a particular service. Unfortunately it is still common practice that fitness service providers love their users so much that they can't image them leaving and either forget to put handles on the inside of the door or make the door very, very tiny. The Data Liberation Score is meant to bring some attention to this problem

For a considerable time developers have been using semi-official Garmin Connect APIs published by Garmin along with a license agreement saying "You are free to access our API as long as you agree to create great things". At the time of writing, these APIs are still live - but the license agreement has been removed and the undocumented authorisation method used to access the API has been greatly complicated. Furthermore, Garmin has recently announced that going forward their APIs will only be available to selected developers and for a $5000 administration fee. This seems like a step in the wrong direction - but until we see how this plays out Garmin will keep a score of "3".

 [1] The "Swag Bag" contains extra features and special deals reserved for RunGap users who support the development, maintenance and support of RunGap by subscribing. Choose "Swag Bag" from the upper, left main menu to get yours.