Recording Tracks on Apple Watch

Record your hike right from your wrist. While you record, the watch shows your stats and your progress along a route, and can save the track as an Apple Health workout.

How to start a recording

1. Tap the hiker button in the top-left corner of the map.

   

2. Choose your activity under Recent Workouts or All Workouts. The top of the screen shows your current GPS accuracy, so you can wait for a good signal before you start.

   

3. If you're working in a team, choose where the track goes: Save to Team or Save to My Data. A track saved to My Data won't show on the map after you stop until you switch back to My Data. If your role on the team doesn't let you add data, only Save to My Data is offered.

   

4. Recording starts after a short countdown. Tap the screen to skip it.

The recording screens

1. Tap the recording distance in the top-left corner to bring up the controls and metrics.

   

2. Swipe sideways to move between the three screens: recording controls on the left, recording metrics in the middle, and Progress on Trail on the right. The watch reopens on the screen you used last.

Recording controls

• End: stops the recording. Tap End Recording to confirm. On the summary that follows, tap Delete, then Delete Recording, if you don't want to keep the track.
• Pause: pauses the recording. Tap Resume to continue.
• Settings: changes your recording settings.
• Activity: picks the kind of activity you're doing.

Recording metrics

Swipe up or rotate the Digital Crown to move between the metric screens.

Progress on Trail

The first time you open this screen, select the trail you're following.

The screen then shows your progress along that trail: the distance remaining at the top and the segments below. To add a segment, add a waypoint on the map close to the trail.

Recording settings

• Save Track to Apple Health Workout also saves your recording as an Apple Health workout. Only one app can record a workout at a time, so turn this off if you want to record the workout with Apple's Workout app.
• Auto Pause Track Recording pauses the recording when you stop and resumes it when you start moving again.
• Disable Car Ride Detection turns off the alert you get when the watch senses you've started driving while still recording. See Car Ride Detection.

You can also change these in the menu under Settings & About → App Settings.

How to customize your metrics

1. In the recording settings, tap Recording Views.

   

2. To change the one metric that appears on every metric screen, tap the metric under Top Persistent Metric. You can pick a new metric, change its color, or both.

   

3. There are 4 metric screens (Screen 1 to Screen 4) and 4 elevation screens (Elevations 1 to Elevations 3 and Elevation Graph). Use the Include toggle at the bottom of each screen to choose whether it appears while you record. Screen 2 is required and can't be turned off.

   

4. Tap the edit button (the pencil) on a screen to change its metrics.

   

5. Tap a metric, then choose a color at the top and a new metric from the list.

   

How to find past recordings

Tap the menu button, then tap My Data (or Team Data) → Workout History. It lists the tracks you've recorded on your watch.