How to import a GPX file into Strava

The short answer

On the Strava website, the upload option lives behind the "+" button at the top of the page — choose "Upload activity", then "File", and pick the .gpx file from your computer. Strava reads the points, builds an activity from them, and works out distance, moving time and elevation itself from what the file contains.

On an iPhone, the more common route is the other direction: from the app that recorded the walk, use its share or export action and choose Strava from the row of apps iOS offers, the same share sheet any file uses to hand itself to another app.

Where the GPX file comes from in the first place

Strava only has a walk it recorded itself, unless the app that actually tracked it hands the route over as a file first. 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 Strava and most other services expect.

Getting it into Strava

From the Strava website

Sign in, open the "+" menu, and choose "Upload activity" then "File". Strava accepts one GPX at a time here, so a folder of files means repeating the step, but each upload only takes a few seconds once the file is selected.

From an iPhone, through the share sheet

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 Strava among the apps offered. Tapping it hands the file straight to Strava's app without a separate upload screen.

Naming and activity type

Strava will ask, or let you edit afterwards, what kind of activity this was and what to call it — the GPX file itself may carry a track name, but Strava does not assume the activity type from the file alone, since a GPX file has no field that says "hike" versus "walk" versus "ride".

What Strava does with the file once it arrives

Strava recalculates rather than trusting a summary number baked into the file, because a GPX track does not carry one — only the raw points do. Distance is computed from the recorded coordinates, moving time from gaps between timestamps, and elevation gain either from the elevation values in the file or from Strava's own terrain model, depending on what the file provides and how Strava chooses to treat it. This is why the same GPX file can show a slightly different distance or climb total on Strava than the app that exported it — both numbers came from real recorded points, just processed by two different pieces of software.

Anything the GPX format has no field for does not travel with it either. Photos, video clips and voice notes captured during the original walk live outside the file, so an upload brings the shape of the route across, not the moments recorded along it.

Things that go wrong, and why

• The upload is rejected as empty — usually the file has too few points, for example a recording that stopped seconds after it started.
• The activity shows the wrong start time — GPX timestamps are UTC by convention, and Strava applies your account timezone on import, so a several-hour offset is a display setting, not a corrupted file.
• Distance looks a little short or long compared to the original app — expected, for the reasons above, and not a sign either number is wrong.
• Nothing happens when the file is tapped on iPhone — check the extension is still .gpx. Some email clients rewrite attachments as .txt, which stops iOS from offering apps that handle the format.

Why the file is what actually moves

GPX exists so a route recorded in one app can have a second life in another, and uploading a hike from a recording app into Strava is an ordinary version of that. Keeping the GPX file as the thing that travels between them — rather than a screenshot of a summary screen or a number typed from memory — is what keeps the real shape of the walk intact once it lands somewhere else.

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.