How to merge two Strava activities
- Export both parts from strava.com. Open the first activity on the Strava website, click the ⋯ button to the left of the map and choose Export Original. Do the same for the second part. If Export Original isn't in the menu, choose Export GPX.
- Keep what deleting would lose. Deleting an activity also deletes its kudos, comments and photos. Check that the photos are still on your phone, and copy the title and description somewhere.
- Merge the files on this page. Drop both files into the box at the top, in any order. Look over the map and the totals, leave the format on FIT and download the merged file.
- Delete the two parts on Strava. Open each part, click ⋯ and choose Delete. Do this before you upload, or Strava may turn the merged file away as a duplicate.
- Upload the merged file. On strava.com, click the + at the top right, choose Upload Activity, then File, and pick the merged file. Then add back the title, the description and the photos, and check the gear.
Why Strava can't do it for you
Strava's editing tools only go one way. Crop trims the start or the end of an activity, never the middle. Split, on the website, cuts a GPS ride or run into two or three pieces. Nothing joins two activities back together. Strava's own help article on merging says so and gives the way round it: export the original files, combine them with a separate tool, delete the originals, then upload the combined file. The steps above are that recipe, with the combining done in your browser.
FitMerge never sends your files anywhere. They are read and joined on your device, and the merged file is saved straight back to it.
Export Original or Export GPX?
Choose Export Original whenever Strava offers it. You get the file just as your watch, bike computer or app sent it, which is often a FIT file with your laps, pauses, power and the name of the device inside. Export GPX gives you a file Strava writes from the activity: the track and the times, heart rate, cadence and temperature, and power if it came from a power meter. A GPX has no laps.
You can mix the two. A FIT for the first part and a GPX for the second merge without trouble, and a download that arrives as .zip or .gz can go in as it is.
Merging Strava activities on a phone
The Strava app can't export or upload a file; Strava keeps both on its website. You can still do the whole job in your phone's browser:
- Open strava.com in the browser, not the app, and sign in. If an activity page has no ⋯ menu with Export Original, switch the browser to its desktop site and look again.
- Come back to this page, tap the box at the top and pick the two files from your downloads.
- Download the merged FIT and delete the two parts, in the app or on the site. Then open strava.com/upload/select in the browser and choose the merged file.
What the merged activity keeps, and what it loses
- Kudos, comments and photos stay with the two activities you delete, and Strava can't move them. Restoring a deleted activity doesn't bring the kudos and comments back either.
- Your data carries over, whatever the parts recorded: the GPS track, heart rate, cadence, power, temperature and laps. The time between the parts is a pause in the merged file. Strava works out moving time itself, so its figure can differ a little from the one FitMerge shows.
- Elevation stays your device's own when it has a barometric altimeter that Strava knows. The merged FIT keeps the device's identity, so Strava still uses it. A merged TCX carries no device at all and a merged GPX names FitMerge, so Strava may swap in its own corrected elevation. That is one more reason to download FIT for Strava.
- Segments are matched from the GPS points in the file you upload, so your segment efforts are worked out again on the merged activity.
- Automatic sync needs no special care. If your Garmin, Wahoo or COROS sends activities to Strava on its own, delete the two parts on Strava only. There's no need to touch the copies in the device's own app; they are your backup.
Deleted the wrong one? Strava keeps deleted activities for 30 days. On the website, open My Activities from the Training menu and look under Recently Deleted.
Questions
Can I keep the kudos and comments?
No. They belong to the activities you delete, and Strava's merge article says they are lost. If they matter to you, merge soon after you finish, before most of them come in.
Can I merge three or more Strava activities?
Yes. Export every part and drop them in together, up to 10 files. FitMerge puts them in time order, so the order you pick them in doesn't matter.
Can I merge activities from different days?
If they are one activity, yes, even across midnight. FitMerge asks you to confirm a break of more than 2 hours, and parts more than 12 hours apart are not merged, so a run one morning and another the next morning stay two activities.
Strava says my upload is a duplicate. What now?
Strava thinks the file is an activity you already have. In our test that happened while one of the parts was still on the account: delete it, then upload the merged file again.
My watch and my phone recorded at the same time. Can I merge them?
Not with FitMerge. It joins parts that follow one another, and two recordings of the same stretch overlap in time, so it won't merge them. Strava doesn't allow two public copies of one activity either: keep the better recording and delete the other, or set it to Only You.
Will my run or walk still be a run or walk on Strava?
Yes, if you download FIT. The merged file keeps the sport the parts were recorded as, and in our tests Strava read a merged FIT walk as a walk. Avoid TCX for this: it can only say running, biking or other, and Strava filed a TCX walk as a workout.