How to import a GPX file into Gaia GPS

The short answer

Get the .gpx file onto your phone or computer, then hand it to Gaia GPS instead of just previewing it. On an iPhone the usual route is the share sheet: from Files, from an email attachment, or straight from the export action of whatever app recorded the hike, tap share and pick Gaia GPS from the row of apps offered. On a computer, Gaia GPS on the web has an import option that accepts a GPX file uploaded from your desktop the same way.

Where the GPX file comes from in the first place

Gaia only sees a hike that Gaia itself recorded, unless the app that actually tracked the walk hands the route over as a file first. Most GPS recorders have an export or share action that writes the points it recorded — latitude, longitude, elevation and a timestamp for each — into a single .gpx file. TrailCam can export a single route or an entire history this way, in GPX 1.1, which is the version Gaia and most other mapping tools expect.

Getting it into Gaia GPS

From an iPhone, through the share sheet

This is usually the quickest path and needs nothing beyond what is already installed. Find the .gpx file — in Files, in an email, or from the share action of the app that produced it — tap the share icon, and look for Gaia GPS among the apps offered. Tapping it hands the file straight to Gaia, which reads the track in without a separate upload step.

From the Gaia GPS website

The web version accepts a GPX file uploaded directly from a computer, the same track import the phone app does. This is the more comfortable route when there is a folder of files to work through at once, or when the export landed in an inbox you read on a laptop rather than a phone.

Straight from another app, if both are installed

When the recording app and Gaia sit on the same phone, the export or share button inside the recording app can sometimes offer Gaia directly as a destination, the same list iOS builds for any shareable file — no trip through Files needed. When that shortcut is not offered, exporting to Files first and sharing from there always works.

What actually lands in Gaia

A GPX file can hold three different things, and only one of them behaves like a recorded hike once imported: a track, an ordered, timestamped list of points tracing where someone actually walked. Gaia draws that as a line on the map, using whatever elevation and timing the file carries. A route — a smaller set of planned turn points with no timestamps — or a bare waypoint will still import, but without timestamps there is nothing to derive pace or moving time from.

Anything the format has no field for does not travel with it. Photos, video clips and voice notes captured during the original walk live outside the GPX file, so importing it brings the shape of the route across, not the moments recorded along the way. If those matter, the import is a copy of the geometry — keep the original recording somewhere as the master copy of the whole walk, not just the line.

Things that trip people up

• The same walk shows up twice — usually the file was shared in through two different paths, for instance once via Files and once directly app-to-app. Delete the duplicate rather than assuming Gaia imported it wrong.
• The track imports but the map around it looks empty at first — the base map layer is a separate download from the track itself and can take a moment to load, even though the imported line appeared instantly.
• Elevation looks different from what the original app reported — like several mapping services, Gaia can apply its own terrain elevation model on import rather than trusting the raw value in the file, so a changed climb total after import reflects a different data source, not an error in either app.
• Nothing happens when the file is tapped — check the extension is still .gpx. Some email clients rewrite attachments as .txt, which stops iOS from offering the apps that actually handle the format.

Why bother moving it at all

GPX exists specifically so a route recorded in one app can have a second life in another, and carrying a hike from a recording app into Gaia is an ordinary version of that: Gaia is built around maps, layers and trip planning, which is not what every recording app tries to be. Keeping the GPX file as the thing that actually travels between them — rather than a screenshot or a number typed from memory — is what keeps the real shape of the walk intact on the other end.

TrailCam records the route on an iPhone and exports it as GPX 1.1 or CSV, either for a single walk or the whole history at once, which is the file this entire process starts from. Export is part of the optional TrailCam Pro upgrade; the app itself is free to download.