Garmin’s API Shake-Up: What It Means for Where Your Training Data Lives

Platforms that receive your Garmin activities, send routes and structured workouts to your watch or bike computer, or read your health data do it through the Garmin Connect API, as DC Rainmaker explains. In 2026 that API changed in three ways. Garmin stopped taking new developer applications in the spring. A rule on passing Garmin data on to other services led one AI coaching service, Intervals Pro, to close on 12 October. And on 21 October Garmin reopened the program with three access levels, one of them paid.

Below is what happened and when, from Garmin’s own pages, the reporting of DC Rainmaker, the5krunner and Notebookcheck, and the posts of Intervals.icu’s developer. Then: how to keep your own copy of your training data, using Garmin’s and Strava’s published steps.

What the Garmin Connect API Carries

DC Rainmaker lists the main jobs: delivering completed activities, sending routes and structured workouts to devices, and passing on health and wellness data. It names Strava and Komoot as users of the route side, and TrainingPeaks and Final Surge as users of the workout side. Per Garmin’s Activity API page, data becomes available through the API, once the user has consented, when the device syncs with Garmin Connect. Connect IQ, the program for watch faces and apps on the devices, is separate; DC Rainmaker reports it remains free and unchanged.

The 2026 Timeline

Why Garmin paused

DC Rainmaker reports that Garmin closed the program in March under the volume: from a handful of mostly legitimate applications a week to a daily wave of AI-built apps; fewer than half of all applicants used their access once granted. It also blames Garmin’s own process, which put every request through enterprise-level checks that could take weeks to months.

the5krunner, which reported the pause on 14 September, found one applicant from March still waiting for a decision in September, while existing approved partners kept working. It also points out that Garmin’s purchase of TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic, announced on 22 July, came months after the pause began.

The Sharing Rule and the Intervals Pro Closure

On 9 October David Tinker, who develops Intervals.icu, updated the platform’s long-running forum thread on its API: Garmin’s terms had changed, and Intervals.icu would likely have to block access to Garmin data through its own API soon. One service reading athletes’ data through that API was Intervals Pro, an AI coach that analysed activities, sleep and training load from Intervals.icu.

Intervals Pro closed three days later, on 12 October. Its closure notice gives the reason: “Garmin data will no longer be available through Intervals.icu, which the coach depends on.” Billing stopped, unused prepaid time is refunded automatically, and users could download their coaching conversations until 19 October. According to the5krunner, Intervals Pro said it had 3,600 athletes.

Garmin’s developer agreement contains the rule. In the version on Garmin’s website (form FRM-0952 Rev. B, a file dated March 2026), clause 5.2(o) bars a licensee from building its own API that provides end-user data to third-party websites, apps, platforms, services or products that Garmin has not approved in writing. Notebookcheck’s Silvio Werner reported on 14 October that the revised terms explicitly prohibit such onward sharing and appeared to have changed without advance notice, adding that because onward sharing often raises privacy concerns, the change does not necessarily mean Garmin is deliberately shutting out third parties.

The same day, after a call with Garmin, Tinker posted that “the requirements around third-party sharing through our API are not new”, and that the revisions to the agreement were part of the planned reopening of the developer program. So the sources differ on whether the rule is new. They agree on what it covers: data that arrived through Garmin’s API and is then passed on to a service Garmin has not approved.

Garmin’s Three New Access Levels

Garmin’s developer site now lists Personal access for individuals and two business levels, Starter and Enterprise. Garmin publishes no prices, so the costs below are DC Rainmaker’s reporting. DC Rainmaker calls the middle level Startup in places; Garmin’s page says Starter.

For athletes, Personal is the new part: a key you create on the Garmin Connect website gives you API access to your own data, and Garmin says it is not meant for commercial apps serving many users. The access tokens made from a key last 24 hours. DC Rainmaker created a key in about eight seconds and calls the change a huge win for hobbyists, who can now pull their own Garmin data without handling FIT files by hand.

For companies, DC Rainmaker reports that Enterprise, needed beyond 1,000 users, carries a $1,000 entry fee credited against a monthly bill per active user, negotiated company by company; access had been free since 2019, when Garmin dropped a $5,000 fee. Existing partners become Enterprise automatically and pay no entry fee. Companies start paying by 1 April 2027, and until then Garmin is working out the financial terms with existing partners. Garmin’s own page says only that Enterprise terms are tailored to business and technical requirements.

DC Rainmaker adds a caveat on completeness: Personal and Starter access include the full FIT file, but it sounds like Garmin strips some data it considers proprietary from files delivered this way, data that is present when the file is uploaded manually from the device.

Where Things Stand for Intervals.icu Users

Intervals.icu itself was still syncing Garmin activities when Gadgets & Wearables reported on 14 October; the change concerns what Intervals.icu can pass on. On 22 October, asked whether Garmin data from the Intervals.icu API would come back without details, as Strava data already does, Tinker replied that this is likely; he hopes to return a stub carrying the Garmin ID, with details to be sorted out with Garmin over the coming weeks or months. On 24 October he told developers to get their own Garmin connection for activity data, and said the future of wellness data and workout uploads was still unclear. On 26 October he added that none of it had been finalised.

Files you upload yourself look safer. Asked on 9 October about Garmin-recorded FIT files uploaded manually, Tinker replied that these are likely to be fine, and the5krunner wrote on 14 October that such files are expected to remain unaffected. Neither is a guarantee.

How to Keep Your Own Copy

the5krunner’s 14 October rundown of what still works: a platform you sync to directly from Garmin Connect still receives your data, and Garmin Connect still lets you download your FIT files. Apps and scripts that read your Garmin data through another platform’s API, AI tools included, will likely lose access, it says. Garmin Support lists these export routes:

Start with a full account export

Garmin says the account export (route 4 above) covers all your associated Garmin data. When the emailed link arrives, open the zipped folder: the activity files sit in the DI_CONNECT folder, under DI-Connect-Fitness-Uploaded-Files or DI-Connect-Uploaded-Files, as FIT files. After that, Export File on each new activity gives you the original device file, typically a .fit, according to Garmin.

Keep a second copy on Strava

Strava connects to Garmin Connect from its app (Settings, Connect an App or Device, Garmin) or website, after which Garmin Connect sends activities automatically; Strava’s help page describes activities and does not mention health data. For older activities, Strava describes exporting them from Garmin Connect and uploading them, 25 files at a time for subscribers or 15 for everyone else. Getting data back out is also possible, on the Strava website only: under Settings, My Account, Download your account (Get Started, then Request download), Strava emails a link to your archive, which it says may take a few hours.

One caution: a Strava copy is not an open hub for other apps. the5krunner notes that Strava tightened its own API rules in November 2024, including limits on using its data to train AI, and Tinker says the Intervals.icu API already returns only stubs for activities that came from Strava.

Know which of your tools connect directly

The sources name Strava, Intervals.icu, TrainingPeaks, Final Surge and Komoot among the platforms with their own Garmin Connect connection; DC Rainmaker expects approval for the free Starter level to be almost instant. If a tool you rely on reads your Garmin data through another platform instead, that is the link the sharing rule covers, and worth asking its developer about.

What to Watch

• Intervals.icu’s API: wellness data and workout uploads, undecided as of 24 October.
• Enterprise pricing: companies start paying by 1 April 2027, at per-user rates negotiated company by company (DC Rainmaker).
• FIT completeness: whether API-delivered files keep losing proprietary fields (DC Rainmaker).

Until then, the route the sources expect to stay unaffected is the FIT file you export and upload yourself.

Sources

• Garmin (primary): Garmin Connect Developer Program overview, Business program FAQ, Activity API page, Personal API page and Personal API FAQ (developer.garmin.com, read 26 October 2026); Garmin Connect Developer Program Agreement, form FRM-0952 Rev. B (PDF dated 3 March 2026), clause 5.2(o); Garmin Support, “How Do I Export Data Out of Garmin Connect?”; Garmin newsroom, “Garmin acquires TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic, leading endurance and strength training platforms for athletes and coaches” (22 July 2026).
• Intervals.icu and Intervals Pro (primary): David Tinker’s posts in the “API access to Intervals.icu” forum thread (9, 14, 21, 22, 24 and 26 October 2026); Intervals Pro closure notice at intervals.pro (12 October 2026).
• Strava Support: “Garmin and Strava” (updated 22 September 2026); “Import Historical Data From Garmin Connect” (updated 21 September 2026); “How Do I Export My Strava Data?” (updated 14 September 2026).
• Reporting: DC Rainmaker, “Garmin Revamps and Opens Up Connect Developer API Program: All the Details” (21 October 2026); the5krunner, “Garmin Freezes Developer API Months After Strava Lawsuit” (14 September 2026, updated 24 October 2026); the5krunner, “Garmin cuts off INTERVALS and other third-party apps” (14 October 2026); Silvio Werner, “Garmin cuts data access: Developers begin shutting down smartwatch apps” (Notebookcheck, 14 October 2026); Ivan Jovin, “Intervals Pro shuts down as Garmin tightens access to training data” (Gadgets & Wearables, 14 October 2026).

Garmin’s program terms and Intervals.icu’s plans were still changing when this was written; check the sources above for updates. No affiliate links were used in this article.

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