Import your Strava history

Moving from Strava to Coachbox? The import brings your full activity history across in a single upload, without re-linking every workout or waiting for the live sync.

What does this feature do?

Strava offers a complete export of your account: the "Bulk Export". You upload that ZIP archive in Coachbox and we process your activities in the background into workouts in your calendar. Handy when you start out and often have years of activities.

Supported files from the archive: .fit, .tcx and .gpx (including gzipped).
Activities already in Coachbox (via the live Strava connection, a manual upload, or another platform) are skipped automatically, so you don't get duplicates.
The import only brings your activities across. You set your training zones yourself, or your coach sets them for you.

Step 1: Request your Strava archive

Strava calls this the "Bulk Export". You request the archive on Strava itself:

Log into the Strava account you want to export data from on Strava.com.
Hover over your name in the upper right corner and choose Settings, then open the My Account tab on the left.
Select Get Started under Download or Delete Your Account.
Select Request your archive on the next page.
You will receive an email with a link to download your data. This can take a few hours, so make sure you have access to the email account attached to your Strava profile.

Strava's full instructions are here: Exporting your Data and Bulk Export.

Step 2: Upload the archive in Coachbox

The import runs in the web app only. It is not available in the Coachbox mobile app yet, so upload your archive from a browser on coachbox.app.

Go to Settings → Synchronisation.
Under Import data once from another platform, click Import on the Strava row.
Drop the ZIP file into the upload area or pick it via choose a file.

Processing starts automatically. You see the progress ("X of Y processed") and a summary at the end with how many activities were imported and skipped.

Is your archive larger than 1 GB?

The upload limit is 1 GB. If you go over it, the photos and videos attached to your activities are almost always what blows up the archive. They sit together in the media folder, and Coachbox does not import those images. You can safely drop them before uploading.

Unzip the file, a double click is enough.
In the unzipped folder, delete the media folder.
Zip the remaining folder again. On Mac: right click, Compress. On Windows: right click, Compress to ZIP file.
Check the size of the new ZIP file. If you are under 1 GB, you can upload it.

You lose nothing from your training history: all your activities, with power, heart rate and GPS, sit in the activities folder and that one stays. If your computer adds an extra folder layer while zipping, that is fine: the import recognises it.

Still above 1 GB after that? Then everything can go except these three: activities.csv, general_preferences.csv and the activities folder. The import uses nothing else. The rest of the export (comments, kudos, routes, segments, messages, clubs) is never read.

Can't work it out, or does your archive stay too large? Let us know at support@coachbox.app and we'll help you out.

Good to know

Processing can take a few minutes to an hour, depending on the size of your export. You don't need to wait around: the import keeps running in the background.
You can close the window. The import keeps running in the background, even if you navigate to another page. When you come back, you see the running import or the last summary.
One import at a time. While an import is running you can't start a second one. You can cancel a running import; activities already imported are kept.
Maximum file size: 1 GB. That covers even a very large multi-year history. If your archive is bigger, you can shrink it by dropping the media folder, as described above.
Web app only. Importing is done from a browser, not the Coachbox mobile app (for now).
Manually entered activities (without a matching file in the export) are skipped.
Coming from TrainingPeaks? Follow Import your TrainingPeaks history instead, that export works differently.