How to import a GPX file into OS Maps

The short answer

On an iPhone, find the .gpx file — in Files, in an email, or from the export action of the app that recorded the walk — tap the share icon, and choose OS Maps from the row of apps offered. It opens directly in the app as a route drawn over OS's own mapping.

From a computer, sign in on the OS Maps website, go to Routes, and use the Import GPX option to upload the file. Once it is in, it appears under My Routes and syncs to the phone app automatically, provided both are signed into the same account.

Where the GPX file comes from in the first place

OS Maps only has a route once some other app hands it one as a file — it is not the thing that tracked your position while you walked. Most GPS recorders have an export or share action that writes the points logged, 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 OS Maps and most other mapping tools expect.

Getting it into OS Maps

From an iPhone, through the share sheet

This is the more direct path when the file and the app are already both on the phone. Tap the .gpx file wherever it sits, choose Share, and pick OS Maps from the list iOS offers. There is no separate upload step — the app opens with the track already drawn onto the map.

From the OS Maps website

The web version is the more comfortable route when there is a folder of files to work through, or when the export landed in an inbox read on a laptop. Sign in, open Routes, choose Import GPX, and select the file from your computer. It saves as one of your routes and reaches the app on its own the next time it syncs.

What actually lands in OS Maps

A GPX file can hold three different things, and only a track — an ordered, timestamped list of points — behaves like a recorded walk once it is in. OS Maps draws that line over its own detailed map layers, which is really the point of bringing a track in here at all: the value is not the imported line itself, which OS Maps had no part in recording, but seeing where you actually went against the paths, rights of way and terrain detail on Ordnance Survey's own maps.

Anything the format has no field for stays behind. Photos, video clips and voice notes captured on the original walk live outside the GPX file, so an import brings the shape of the route across, not the moments recorded along it. If those matter, keep the original recording as the master copy of the whole walk, not just the line.

Things that trip people up

• The route appears on the website but never shows up on the phone — check that the app and the website are signed into the same OS Maps account. Syncing only works between two logins that match.
• The same walk shows up twice — usually the file was shared in through two different paths, for instance once from the website and once directly from the phone. Delete the duplicate rather than assuming the import went wrong.
• Elevation looks different from what the recording app reported — OS Maps can draw its climb figures from its own terrain model rather than the value stored in the file, so a changed number after import reflects a different data source, not an error.
• 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 so a route recorded in one app can have a working life in another, and carrying a hike from a recording app onto OS's own mapping is an ordinary version of that — you get the walk you actually did, laid over map detail no phone GPS receiver produces on its own. Keeping the GPX file as the thing that travels between them, rather than a screenshot or a distance 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.