Can you import a GPX file into Polarsteps?
No. Polarsteps has no button, menu or upload screen that reads in a GPX file and draws it as a route — not in the iPhone app, not on the desktop site. That is not a missing feature so much as a difference in what the app is built to do: Polarsteps builds a trip's map while you are travelling, one live position at a time, rather than accepting a finished track handed to it after the fact. Here is what that means in practice, and what to do with a GPX file if Polarsteps was where you hoped it would end up.
The short answer
There is no import option for a GPX file, or any other track format, anywhere in Polarsteps. Drop a .gpx file onto a trip and nothing happens, because nothing in the app is listening for one. The closest thing to it is a manual entry field on the desktop website where you can type in a single latitude and longitude by hand — that places one point, never a track.
Why Polarsteps works this way
Polarsteps is built around a live tracker: start it at the beginning of a trip and it records your position in the background as you actually move, turning that movement into a line on the trip's map and suggesting new "steps" — the app's word for a stop worth marking — as you visit new places. That is a different job from reading in a route someone recorded somewhere else and handed over afterwards. Gaia GPS, Komoot and Google Earth are all built to treat an outside GPX file as a first-class object you bring in; Polarsteps was built to be the thing doing the recording itself, live, and taking in a finished file from elsewhere was never part of that design.
What actually happens if you try
Nothing in the app recognises the file. Tap a .gpx file on an iPhone and choose "Open in" and Polarsteps will not be among the apps offered, because it never registered itself as able to read one. The one place a coordinate can be entered by hand is a step's location field on the desktop website — type in a latitude and longitude and it places a single pin there. A GPX track is normally a few hundred or a few thousand points recorded seconds apart; typing them in one at a time was never a realistic way to rebuild the shape of an actual walk.
Why uploading geotagged photos does not fill the gap either
It is a reasonable guess that a batch of geotagged photos might do what a GPX file can't — upload them and let the coordinates already sitting in each file place them on the map. Polarsteps does not do that automatically. Photos get attached to a step by hand, and it is the step's own location that decides where they land on the trip's map, not whatever coordinate happens to be stored inside the photo itself. Location and photo are two separate things you attach to a step yourself, one does not drive the other.
Where a GPX file actually goes
None of this means the file is stuck, only that Polarsteps was never the destination for it. Plenty of apps exist specifically to take in a track recorded elsewhere and draw it as a line:
- Gaia GPS, Komoot and CalTopo all accept a GPX track directly and treat it as a real route, not just a preview of a file.
- Google Earth Pro opens a GPX file with no conversion step at all.
- Strava and Garmin Connect also take a GPX upload, though they log it as a completed activity rather than a route to simply browse.
Any of these fits "I have a route, show it to me" far better than Polarsteps ever will, because that is the job they were built around.
If the point was to keep the whole trip, not just get a line onto a map
Often the real goal behind the question was never "get this into Polarsteps" as an end in itself — it was wanting a record of a walk that holds more than the shape of the route: the stops, the photos, the way the day actually went. TrailCam already does that on its own terms. It records a route with GPS the entire time you are out, and keeps any photo, video clip or voice note pinned to the exact spot along that route where you took it, ready to replay in order afterwards. Export to GPX 1.1 or CSV covers taking the route itself elsewhere; it is part of the optional TrailCam Pro upgrade, and the app itself is free to download.
Questions
- Does Polarsteps support GPX files at all?
- No. There is no import option anywhere in Polarsteps for a GPX file or any other location file, on the app or the desktop website. The only manual option is a step's location field, where a single latitude and longitude can be typed in to place one point.
- Can I add a route by uploading geotagged photos instead?
- Not automatically. Photos are attached to a step by hand, and it is the step's own location that places them on the trip's map — not whichever coordinate is stored inside the photo file itself.
- Which apps do open a GPX file directly?
- Gaia GPS, Komoot, CalTopo and Google Earth Pro all read a GPX track natively. Strava and Garmin Connect also accept a GPX upload, though they log it as a completed activity rather than a route you simply browse.
Recording your own routes
TrailCam is an iPhone app that records your route with GPS, keeps video clips, photos and voice notes pinned to the spot where you took them, and exports the result as GPX 1.1 or CSV. It is free to download.