Skip to content

Exporting Dives from Garmin Descent

Garmin Descent watches sync your dives to Garmin Connect. From there you can download the original dive file and upload it directly to DiveHub. You don't need a UDDF file, and you don't need a third-party dive log program.

DiveHub reads Garmin's FIT files (.fit), the format Garmin uses to record every activity. Garmin Connect delivers the file inside a zip, and DiveHub accepts either the zip or the .fit file inside it.

Which Garmin computers work?

Dives from these Garmin Descent watches are supported:

  • Descent Mk1
  • Descent Mk2, Mk2i and Mk2S
  • Descent Mk3
  • Descent G1

Other Garmin watches that record dives may work too. If DiveHub can't find a dive in the file, it tells you.

Step 1: Download the original file from Garmin Connect

  1. Sync your watch so the dive appears in Garmin Connect.
  2. Open the Garmin Connect website and open the dive activity you want.
  3. Select the gear icon, then Export Original. The label may appear in your own language.
  4. Your browser downloads a zip file containing one .fit file. Keep it as it is, or unzip it if you prefer.

Don't use the TCX export. It doesn't contain the dive data.

Garmin Express no longer reliably leaves .fit files in the watch's Activity folder after syncing, so Export Original is the dependable route.

Step 2: Import into DiveHub

These steps describe the DiveHub web app, whose controls are labelled in English. In the mobile app, choose the import option when you add a dive.

  1. Open DiveHub and select Add dive to open the Log a dive page.
  2. Switch the toggle from Manual to Import Dive Computer, then under Computer log file choose the zip you downloaded, or the .fit file inside it.
  3. Choose the Dive site, enter the dive's date and start time, and fill in any other details you want to record.
  4. Select Save dive.

DiveHub imports one dive at a time. Repeat the steps for each dive you want to bring across. See Importing Dives for more detail.

What DiveHub imports

  • The depth profile, with water temperature where your watch recorded it. A dive's maximum depth and duration are worked out from the profile.
  • The gases you dived with, such as air, nitrox and trimix. A gas the watch lists for both open circuit and rebreather diluent appears once.
  • The device: the watch name, serial number and software version.

To keep your dive log fast, DiveHub stores the profile with a sample about every 10 seconds, keeping the deepest point and the end of the dive.

GPS positions are not imported. Choose the dive site yourself. The dive's date, time, site and notes always come from what you enter in DiveHub. Values such as water type, average depth and whether you dived a rebreather aren't stored on a dive yet.

Alternative: Subsurface

If you already use Subsurface (free, open source, desktop only), you can convert your Garmin dives to UDDF yourself.

  1. Download the .fit file from Garmin Connect as in Step 1 and unzip it into a folder.
  2. In Subsurface open File, then Import, then Import from dive computer.
  3. Choose FIT as the vendor and select the folder that holds the .fit files.
  4. When the dives appear in the dive list, open File, then Export, choose UDDF and save the file.
  5. Import the .uddf file into DiveHub as described in Importing Dives.

Subsurface doesn't read GPS positions from Garmin files correctly, so check the location of each dive.

Troubleshooting

DiveHub says the file doesn't contain a dive. The file is probably a different Garmin activity, such as a run. Open a dive activity in Garmin Connect and export that one.

DiveHub says the zip has no .fit file, or more than one. Export a single dive at a time and upload the zip as downloaded.

The file is too large. DiveHub accepts files up to 5 MB. A normal dive is well under 1 MB.

The file could not be read. The download may have been interrupted. Export the dive again.

The dive imported with the wrong units. Check your unit preference in Account Settings.

Related guides