How to import a GPX file into Garmin BaseCamp

The short answer

Open BaseCamp, then use File → Import to browse to a .gpx file, or just drag the file onto the BaseCamp window. Either way, the track appears in the library list on the left, ready to view on the map pane, rename, or send to a connected device. No account or sign-in is involved — BaseCamp works entirely with files stored on the computer it is installed on.

Why this is not the same question as importing into Garmin Connect

Garmin Connect is a website and phone app that stores activities in the cloud and is built around reviewing walks, rides and runs after the fact. BaseCamp is a separate desktop program with no cloud component at all — everything it holds lives in a local library on that one computer, and its main reason for existing is preparing data to load onto a physical Garmin device: a handheld GPS unit, a watch, or a plotter. A GPX file imported into one does not automatically show up in the other. They are two different pieces of Garmin software aimed at two different moments — Connect at looking back on a walk, BaseCamp at getting ready for the next one — and confusing them is the most common reason someone cannot find a file they know they already imported.

What BaseCamp does with the file once it is in

A GPX track comes in as a track in BaseCamp's own library, sitting alongside anything recorded directly on a connected Garmin device and shown the same way — a line on the map pane, with distance and elevation available from the point data. BaseCamp treats a track as a record of where a walk actually went, which is exactly what a GPX <trk> element is.

BaseCamp also understands a separate structure it calls a route — a planned sequence of points meant to be followed, rather than a recorded line. It can convert an imported track into a route, which matters if the actual goal is not just to look at where a walk went, but to load that path onto a device and have it guide you along the same line another day. A track and a route look similar on BaseCamp's map but serve different purposes once they leave the software.

Getting it onto an actual device

The reason most people go looking for BaseCamp import in the first place is to get a route recorded elsewhere onto a handheld GPS unit or watch before a hike, not to view it on a computer screen. With the device connected and showing up in BaseCamp's device list, selecting the imported track or route and using the send-to-device action copies it across, ready to follow without a phone or a signal along the way. This is the one piece neither Garmin Connect nor a phone-based mapping app can do on its own — it is the specific job BaseCamp exists for.

Things that trip people up

• Importing a file and not seeing it anywhere — check the library list on the left rather than only the map pane; a track that is off-screen or zoomed out of view is still there, just not currently visible.
• Expecting a track imported into BaseCamp to appear in Garmin Connect, or the other way round — the two keep entirely separate libraries; moving something from one to the other means exporting from one and importing into the other by hand.
• A file that appears to import with no error but shows no line on the map — usually a GPX with waypoints only and no <trk> element, since BaseCamp has nothing to draw a route line from without one.
• Re-importing the same file and ending up with two copies — BaseCamp does not detect duplicates on its own; the older one has to be deleted from the library by hand if it is no longer wanted.

Where TrailCam fits in

TrailCam records a hike, walk or ride as a GPS track on an iPhone and exports it as GPX 1.1, the format BaseCamp reads directly with no conversion step. That covers getting a walk you already did into BaseCamp's library. The reverse job — loading a planned route onto a Garmin device before setting out — is what BaseCamp itself is for; TrailCam can also bring an existing GPX file back in, if the plan is to follow that same route on the phone instead. Export is part of the optional TrailCam Pro upgrade; the app itself is free to download.