How to export your data from Fitbit and Google Health

Requesting the GDPR export, what arrives, and how to open it.

medium Wait: hours to days, depending on which route

Fitbit and Google Health is required to give you a copy of the data it holds about you, including health data. The request itself is free, and arrives as .zip containing JSON and CSV. Typical wait: hours to days, depending on which route.

Google Takeout

Step by step

  1. Work out which account you have

    If you sign in to Fitbit with a Google account, your data comes through Google Takeout. If you still have a Fitbit account, use fitbit.com.

  2. For a Google account: open Takeout

    Deselect all, then find the health product. It is now listed under Google Health rather than Fitbit, although the folders inside still say Fitbit.

  3. For a Fitbit account: fitbit.com, Settings, Data Export

    You can choose a time period and a file format there, which Takeout does not offer.

  4. Request and wait

    Heart rate at full resolution is by far the largest part and takes the longest to prepare.

  5. Expect thousands of small files

    Heart rate is one file per day, and heart rate variability is a two-line file per day.

Opening your Fitbit and Google Health export

Muletto reads a Fitbit and Google Health export directly - the zip, without unpacking it first - and finds the health data inside.

It runs in the browser: the archive is never uploaded, there is no account, and nothing is installed. Open several exports at once and they become one library, with the photographs that appear in more than one of them found automatically.

The migration to Google created a second folder with the same metrics in a different format, so one export can contain both.

Open your Fitbit and Google Health export

Worth knowing

The migration to Google created a second folder with the same metrics in a different format, so one export can contain both.
Sleep files are named after a date but each contains about a month of nights, in reverse order.
Exercise files are numbered in blocks of a hundred rather than dated, so there is no way to tell what is in one without opening it.

Common questions

Where is Fitbit in Google Takeout?

It is listed as Google Health rather than Fitbit. The folders inside the download still use the Fitbit name, which is why searching for it in the product list turns up nothing.

Why does my Fitbit export have thousands of files?

Heart rate is written one file per day, and heart rate variability one two-line file per day. Several years of wear produces several thousand files with very little in each.

Can I get my Fitbit data without a Google account?

Only if you still have a Fitbit login. Once the account is migrated, Takeout is the route.