How To Delete Your Smartwatch or Fitness Tracker’s Data

The smartwatches and fitness trackers we strap to our wrists are meant to log our activities in minute detail — but there may be times when you’d rather not collect records. Whether you’re looking for a fresh start with your fitness regimen, you’re worried your watch might hold too much data about you, or some other reason, deleting data from your wearable isn’t difficult.

Apple watch

When you have an Apple Watch strapped to your wrist, any data it logs is synced to the Health app on your iPhone. Most synced data and activities can be partially or fully deleted; it’s just a matter of digging deep enough. Open the Health app and select searchselect the data you want to work with, and then select Show all data.

At the top right corner you will see a To edit Button: Tap this and you can delete individual entries in the list by tapping the red icons on the left. You can also get rid of everything at once by tapping To edit and then the Delete everything Button. Whether you are deleting individual entries or the entire lot, you will be presented with a confirmation prompt to ensure that you wish to do so.

It’s also possible to control the data that’s synced from your Apple Watch so certain information – like your heart rate, for example – isn’t logged by the wearable. To manage this from the Health app, tap summarythen your profile picture (top right), then Devices. Choose your Apple Watch from the list and select Privacy Settings.

You also have the option to reset your Apple Watch and return it to the state in which you received it. This will erase everything that’s logged on the device, but it won’t affect data that’s already synced to your iPhone. On the Apple Watch, open the Settings app and select General, Reset to defaultand Erase all content and settings.

Fitbit

Fitbit makes a variety of trackers and smartwatches, but they’re all managed through the Fitbit app for Android or iOS. and you can also access your data dashboard on the Internet. A whole bunch of different types of information is collected, and you can edit and remove much of it with a tap (or click) around.

For example, in the mobile app, open the today Tab and tap an exercise tile you see (e.g. the one for daily walks). Then when you tap through to an individual activity, you can tap and select the three dots (top right). Extinguish to remove it from the record. It’s similar with the sleep tiles: select a single sleep record, then tap the three dots Delete log.

You can choose on the Fitbit website protocol and then meal, activities, weight or Sleep. Next to each item is a trash can icon that you can use to delete it. However, in some cases you may have to click through to the individual record. Use the time navigation tool in the top right to look back through time.

If you still can’t figure out how to delete something, Fitbit has comprehensive instructions: For example, you cannot delete steps, but you can overwrite them by manually logging a non-walking activity at the same time. You also have the option to delete your account entirely, which you can do at today tab in the app by tapping your profile picture, then Account settings and Deleting an account.

Samsung Galaxy

When it comes to Samsung Galaxy smartwatches, all your synced data resides in the Samsung Health app for Android or iOS. You can control what information is sent back to the Samsung Health app from the Galaxy Wearable app on your phone: select on the main screen of the device clock settings, then Samsung health.

Certain information can be deleted from Samsung Health, but not others. For example, certain exercises require you to choose exercise of the home and then select the exercise you want to remove. Tap on the three dots (top right) and then select Extinguish and confirm your choice to delete it from the record.

It’s a similar process when it comes to sleep blocks. When you type Sleep of the home tab you can then navigate to the individual night you want to work with. Select it, tap the three dots in the top right corner, then select Extinguish and Extinguish again to delete it. Data on food and water intake can also be deleted in this way.

There are a few more drastic measures you can take. You can factory reset your watch, which is done through the Settings app on the wearable itself: tap General, then Reset to default. You can also delete everything in Samsung Health from this app on your phone by tapping the three lines (top right), the gear icon and then Delete personal data.

Garmin

If you own a Garmin smartwatch, use the Connect app on your phone and you can access the same data as well on the Internet. Start timed activities in the mobile app, open the menu (top left on Android and bottom right on iOS), then select activities and All activities. Select the activity to delete, tap the three dots, then select Delete activity.

It’s a similar process if you want to delete custom workouts (select Education, then training sessions from the app menu) or Weigh (select health statistics, then weight from the app menu). When you get to what you want to delete, you can tap and select the three dots in the top right corner again Extinguish. Some of these records can be edited if that works better than deleting them entirely.

Other parts of your Garmin data log must be cleared on the website, including all-day wellness data and exercise segments. Choose for the former activities and steps On the left, navigate to the tag you want to delete, click the gear icon and select Extinguish. Choose for the latter education and segments Select a segment from the menu on the left, then click the trash can icon and Extinguish.

That’s about as much as Garmin allows you in terms of data wiping – not much standing in the way of granular control. If you want to remove everything (and maybe start over), you can delete your entire Garmin account: go to this websitelog in, click the Erase your data option and follow the on-screen instructions.