If you recently connected your Google Health (formerly Fitbit) account to Health Connect, you might notice that only your current steps are showing up, while your past step history is missing.
Because Android prioritizes privacy, you must explicitly grant permission for apps to access older data. Follow the three steps below to open this permission gate and force your historical steps to sync to Sworkit.
Step 1: Enable “Historical Data Access” in Android Settings
Before any app can read past records, you must give Google Health permission to share its history.
1. Open your phone’s Settings app.
2. Navigate to Apps > Health Connect > App Permissions.
3. Select Google Health from the list.
4. Look for “Allow additional access” or “Historical data access” and verify that it is turned ON.
Step 2: Force a Sync Connection Refresh
Even after giving permission, the background sync engine might sit idle. Toggling the connection reset forces the system to look for older data.
1. Open the Google Health app on your phone.
2. Tap on your Profile icon (or the Connections tab) and select Partner Apps.
3. Select Health Connect and toggle the primary sync switch OFF.
4. Wait 10 seconds, then toggle the switch back ON.
Step 3: Trigger a Cloud-to-App Refresh
Finally, make sure your phone pulls down your full history from the Fitbit cloud storage so it can pass it into Health Connect.
1. Go back to the main dashboard screen of the Google Health app.
2. Swipe down on the screen to initiate a standard page refresh.
3. Wait for the loading spinner at the top of the screen to finish cycling.
⏳ What to Expect Next
• Recent Steps (Last 30–90 days): These should begin appearing in Health Connect and Sworkit within 10 to 15 minutes.
• Older History (Multiple years): If you have years of step history migrating over from an older Fitbit archive, Google’s cloud architecture can take up to 48 hours to fully finish processing and downloading the entire historical batch.
🔍 Still Having Trouble? How to Verify Your Data
If your past steps still aren’t appearing in Sworkit after waiting, you can check if the issue is with Google Health sending the data, or Sworkit receiving it. You can look directly inside Android’s central database to see if your historical steps actually made it there:
1. Open your phone’s Settings app.
2. Navigate to Privacy > Health Connect (or search for “Health Connect” in your settings search bar).
3. Tap on Data and access.
4. Select Activity > Steps.
5. Browse through the calendar or list to see if your past dates show step counts.
• If you see your history here: The data is safely on your phone! Sworkit just needs a moment to read it, or you may need to close and reopen Sworkit to trigger a fresh scan.
• If it is completely blank here: Google Health hasn’t written the older data to your phone yet. Double-check Step 1 above, make sure your phone is connected to Wi-Fi, and give Google’s background sync a bit more time to process the archive.