How to Export Apple Health Activity Data (Steps, Distance, Active Energy)

Apple Health records your activity data continuously in the background — every step your iPhone counts, every mile your Apple Watch tracks, every minute that counts toward your exercise ring, and every hour you stood up. Whether you're in physical therapy after an injury, enrolled in a cardiac rehabilitation program, or just trying to show your primary care doctor that you're hitting your daily activity targets, this data is exactly what clinicians want to see.

This guide shows you how to export your Apple Health activity data — steps, distance, flights climbed, active energy, exercise minutes, and stand hours — as a clean PDF or CSV file using vitalina, a free iPhone app that reads your Apple Health data and generates doctor-ready reports in under two minutes.

Note: this page is about background activity data — the continuous tracking behind the Apple Watch rings. If you want to export specific workout sessions instead (a 5k run, a cycling class, a strength workout), see our workouts export guide.

Why Apple Health's built-in export does not work for activity data

Apple Health does let you export your data as XML, but the result is a single file containing every health data point your iPhone has ever recorded. There is no way to filter by metric, so your step counts and active energy samples are buried alongside sleep, nutrition, heart rate, and everything else. There is also no date range control — you cannot ask for just the last three months of a PT program. The file is not readable by a human, and there are no charts or daily summaries.

Apple doesn't hand you the XML directly either. You get an Export.zip archive that you have to unzip on a computer. Inside is a folder called apple_health_export, and the full Export.xml sits inside it alongside supporting files. For long-time Apple Watch users that XML can easily reach 2.9 GB — 11 years of continuous health data in one file.

Activity data is especially problematic here: iPhones and Apple Watches generate thousands of small samples per day. Even a year of activity history turns the full export into something you cannot realistically email to your physical therapist or review before an appointment.

vitalina solves this by reading your Apple Health data locally on your iPhone and letting you export just your activity metrics — for any date range you choose — as a PDF or CSV.

What you'll need

• An iPhone running iOS 16 or later
• Activity data recorded in Apple Health (your iPhone tracks steps and distance automatically; an Apple Watch adds exercise minutes, stand hours, and active energy)

Step 1: Download vitalina

Download vitalina from the App Store. It's free to use with no account or sign-up required.

Step 2: Allow access to Apple Health

When you first open vitalina, tap Allow Health Access and confirm the permissions in the Apple Health prompt. vitalina only requests read access — it cannot modify or delete your health data.

Your data never leaves your device. vitalina processes everything locally on your iPhone with no cloud uploads, no tracking, and no analytics.

Step 3: Start a quick export or a custom export

On the main screen, you'll see a set of one-tap Quick Export templates for common clinical scenarios. These are the fastest way to generate a report with sensible defaults.

For full control over which activity metrics to include and the exact date range, tap Create Custom Export instead. The rest of this guide walks through the custom export flow so you can tailor the report for your physical therapist, cardiologist, or primary care doctor.

Step 4: Select your activity metrics

In a custom export, you'll see all available health metrics grouped by category. Under Activity, select the metrics your doctor has asked for. The most commonly requested are:

• Steps — daily step count
• Distance — walking and running distance
• Flights Climbed — floors of elevation gained
• Active Energy — calories burned from movement (the move ring)
• Exercise Minutes — minutes of brisk activity (the exercise ring)
• Stand Hours — hours in which you stood and moved for at least a minute (the stand ring)

For a physical therapy progress report, steps and distance are usually enough. For a cardiac rehabilitation program, adding active energy and exercise minutes gives your cardiologist the full picture of cardiovascular effort.

Step 5: Pick a date range

This is where vitalina makes a real difference over Apple's native export. You can choose exactly how far back to go:

• Last 7 days and Last 14 days — available for free
• Last 30 days, 3 months, 1 year, and All time — available with vitalina Pro
• Custom date range — pick any exact start and end date with Pro

Physical therapy and cardiac rehabilitation programs typically run over several months, so the Pro upgrade — a one-time purchase — is usually worth it if you need to cover a full rehab cycle or an insurance wellness-program reporting period.

Step 6: Choose your export format

For activity data, two formats are most useful:

• PDF: The best format for doctor appointments. Includes daily trend charts for each metric, a summary table your physical therapist or cardiologist can read at a glance, and clean formatting that prints well. You can email it, AirDrop it, or print it before your appointment.
• CSV: Opens in Excel or Google Sheets. Ideal if your therapist or an insurance wellness program wants to do detailed per-day analysis, build charts, or import the data into another tool.

Both formats are available for free.

Step 7: Tap "Export Now"

Tap Export Now. vitalina reads your activity data from Apple Health, aggregates it by day, formats the export, and generates your file — usually within a few seconds, even for a full year of history.

Step 8: Share with your doctor

Once your export is ready, you'll see a full preview of the file. From here, tap Export to open the iOS share sheet, where you can:

• Email it to your physical therapist, cardiologist, or primary care doctor before your appointment
• AirDrop or share via Messages to anyone nearby
• Save to Files on your iPhone or iCloud Drive
• Print a physical copy to bring to the clinic or upload to an insurance wellness portal

Which devices record activity data to Apple Health?

vitalina exports any activity data stored in Apple Health, regardless of which device or app recorded it. Activity data typically comes from:

• iPhone — the motion coprocessor tracks steps, distance, and flights climbed automatically, even without an Apple Watch
• Apple Watch — all models; adds exercise minutes, stand hours, and active energy on top of what the iPhone records
• Third-party pedometer apps — Pedometer++, StepsApp, and similar apps that sync their step counts back to Apple Health
• Connected gym equipment with GymKit — treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes that write active energy and workout data directly to Apple Health
• Manual step entries — anything you or someone else has entered by hand in the Health app

If the data appears in Apple Health under Browse → Activity, vitalina can export it.

How much does vitalina cost?

vitalina is free with 5 unique exports and date ranges up to 14 days. vitalina Pro is a one-time purchase (no subscription) that unlocks unlimited exports, extended date ranges up to all time, and Shortcuts automation. Re-exporting the same configuration is always free.

Download vitalina free on the App Store →

Frequently asked questions