Exporting & Importing Your Data
Because Datum stores everything privately on your device (see Getting Started), export is how you get a copy out — for your own backup, for moving to a new device, for moving numbers into a spreadsheet, or just to look at the raw data yourself. Import is the reverse: bringing a previously exported file back in.
If you just want to send one Plan or Template to another Datum user, rather than a full backup of everything, see Sharing Plans & Templates instead.
How to export#
In Settings, tap Export data (see the Settings screenshot). This opens the
standard iOS share sheet with a .json file attached, containing your plans, workout sessions,
body metrics, and nutrition data. From that share sheet you can:
- Save to Files — keeps a copy in iCloud Drive or on your device, outside of Datum
- AirDrop it to a Mac or another device
- Email it to yourself, or send it through any other app that accepts a file
How to import#
In Settings, tap Import data and choose a previously exported .json file. Datum adds
whatever's in that file — plans, workout sessions, body metrics, and nutrition entries — to what's
already in the app. Importing never removes or overwrites anything. If you import the same
file twice, or a file that overlaps with data you already have, Datum quietly skips whatever it
recognizes as already present rather than creating duplicates.
Your own custom exercises come back in full — instructions, muscle groups, equipment, notes, whether they're time-based, whether they're a favourite, and their photo. Seeded exercises aren't in the file because Datum rebuilds those by itself.
Importing never overwrites a custom exercise you already have. If one of the same name is already in your library, Datum leaves it exactly as it is. The one exception is an exercise that's completely empty — nothing but a name, which is what older versions of Datum left behind after a restore — in which case the details from the file are filled in. Nothing can be lost that way, because every field being filled was blank.
If a workout or template refers to an exercise that isn't in your library or in the file (an export made by an older version of Datum, for example), Datum still recreates it by name so your logged sets aren't lost, and the summary after importing tells you which ones need filling in.
What's in the file, and why JSON#
The export is a single JSON file — a plain-text format that's readable by most spreadsheet programs, scripts, and other tools, though it isn't formatted as a ready-made spreadsheet itself. It contains your plans and workout templates, your logged workout sessions (with full set-by-set detail), body metrics, nutrition data, and your custom exercises — including their photos, stored inside the file itself so the export stays a single self-contained backup.
JSON was chosen over CSV specifically because a workout's structure is nested — a session contains exercises, each of which contains sets — and JSON represents that nesting without ambiguity, whereas flattening it into rows-and-columns CSV would require making judgment calls about how to repeat or split that data. If you specifically need a flat CSV for a spreadsheet, that isn't built yet — worth raising if it's something you need.
What isn't included#
Datum's built-in exercise library isn't part of the export — there are hundreds of seeded exercises and Datum restores them by itself, so including them would bloat every backup for no benefit. Your own custom exercises are included, in full. One consequence: if you've marked built-in exercises as favourites, those marks aren't in the file and would need setting again after a restore.
Apple Health's own calorie/heart-rate readings live in Apple Health itself and aren't duplicated into this file either.
Because custom exercise photos are stored inside the export, a library with many photographed exercises will produce a noticeably larger file.