How to back up your Apple Health data before switching to a new iPhone

Vitadatum exports your Apple Health data to JSON and CSV files on your iPhone, so you have your own readable copy of your health history before you switch phones, separate from Apple's transfer, which only carries Health data along certain paths, and from a computer backup only if it is encrypted.

That second clause is the part that catches people out, so this post starts there. Sections 1 to 3 are useful whether or not you ever install anything. They cover Apple's mechanism, which is what decides whether six years of workouts land on your new phone. The app turns up in section 4, and only as the second copy.

Does Apple Health data transfer to a new iPhone?

Yes, but only along a path that carries it. There are three.

• A direct device-to-device transfer (Quick Start), where the old phone hands its data to the new one over a direct connection.
• An iCloud backup with Health switched on in your iCloud settings.
• An encrypted computer backup made in Finder, the Apple Devices app, or iTunes.

The third one is where the trouble lives. Apple's own documentation is blunt about it:

If your backup isn't encrypted, your Health and Activity data from your iOS device or Apple Watch won't transfer.

Health data sits in the group of things Apple only writes into an encrypted backup. Your saved passwords, Wi-Fi settings, website history and call history are in the same group. So encryption is not extra safety on top of a complete backup. It is the switch that decides whether the data is in the file at all. That is a strange piece of design. A security setting doubles as a completeness setting, and nothing anywhere tells you that it did.

The failure mode people actually hit

Almost nobody loses their Health history by choosing wrong at a fork in the road. They lose it because they never saw a fork. The reports come in three shapes.

The unencrypted computer backup. Nobody ticked the box. The backup ran, the restore ran, both reported success, and Health opens empty on the new phone. Nothing warns you at any step, because from the backup's point of view nothing went wrong.

Health switched off in iCloud. A toggle set years ago, or never set at all, on an account that otherwise backs up fine. Photos come across. Messages come across. Health doesn't.

A backup older than the data. The last backup ran before the last few months of workouts, so the restore is genuine and complete and still missing a season of running.

Three people who found out afterwards:

• Lost All Health Data during Transfer (r/AppleWatch)
• Unable to find Health data in new phone (Apple Support Communities)
• Lost Health Data (Apple Support Communities)

The common thread is timing. You find the gap after you have erased the old phone, traded it in, or handed it to a family member. By then there is nothing left to go back to.

Step 1: Turn on the Apple transfer path that actually carries Health

Do this before you order the new phone, not on the evening it arrives. Pick the path you are going to use, then check it.

If you transfer device to device. Keep both phones charged and near each other, and let it finish. This path carries Health without a separate toggle, but it needs the old phone alive and present, so it is no help if the old phone is broken or already gone.

If you rely on iCloud. Open Settings, tap your name, tap iCloud, and confirm that Health is switched on in the list of apps using iCloud. Then check the date of your last iCloud backup and run a fresh one by hand if it is stale.

If you back up to a computer. In Finder, the Apple Devices app, or iTunes, select your iPhone and tick Encrypt local backup before you back up. You will be asked to set a password. Write it somewhere you can still find in two years, because Apple cannot recover it and an encrypted backup without its password is a dead file. Then run the backup and check the timestamp.

Whichever path you use, finish the same way. Confirm the backup exists and is dated today, before you erase anything.

Step 2: Keep your own copy, in a format you can read

Everything above is Apple's plumbing. It either works or it doesn't, and you find out at the moment it matters. A second copy in a format you can open yourself changes what happens when it doesn't.

A device backup is restore-or-nothing. You cannot open one, read one, or check what is inside it. An export is the opposite. Files on disk, in formats that outlive the device that made them.

That is what Vitadatum does, and it is the app I make. It reads Apple Health on your iPhone and writes JSON and CSV files into a folder you choose, on the device, in iCloud Drive, or anywhere the Files app can reach. The files open in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets with no Apple device anywhere in the picture. The JSON goes straight into ChatGPT or Claude if you want something to read the year back to you. And none of it depends on a restore working, an account being signed in, or a password you set two years ago.

One thing it does not do, and I would rather say it here than have you find out at the wrong moment. Vitadatum does not put data back into the Health app. It exports. It does not import or restore. Apple's backup or iCloud sync is what moves your history to the new phone. The export is the independent copy you keep in case that goes sideways, and the readable archive you have anyway.

Same for the price, because this whole post is about history. The free tier exports the last 7 days as JSON. The €4.99 one-time unlock (no subscription) lifts that limit and adds CSV export, background exports, and the custom folder. If you install it the night before a phone swap, export 7 days, and walk away thinking you saved six years, you did not. I would rather lose the install than ship that misunderstanding.

Two limits worth naming. Spookwerk never receives your files. There are no accounts and no servers, and the files land in your storage. And the export can only hold what Apple Health hands over. Recent iOS versions let you grant an app a limited window of your history instead of everything recorded, per data type, and if you did that, the export stops where the permission stops. If the export starts later than you expected, widen the permission in the Health app and run a full export again.

What's in the export (and what isn't)

The export covers 187 data types across 14 categories. Steps, distance, flights climbed. Heart rate, resting heart rate, HRV. Sleep stages and workouts. Blood pressure, blood glucose, blood oxygen, respiratory rate, body temperature. Body measurements and nutrition. And ECG.

ECG is worth calling out, because most tools record only that a reading happened. Vitadatum exports the waveform. Roughly 15,000 voltage measurements per recording, at 512 Hz.

What is not in it:

• Medical records. The clinical records Health pulls in from a hospital or clinic are a separate system, and they stay out of the export.
• Some proprietary Apple measurements, which Apple does not expose to third-party apps at all.
• Anything you have told iOS not to share, including any per-type history limit you set when you granted access.

The formats are JSON and CSV. Not PDF, not XML. And it is an iPhone app. There is no Apple Watch app and no Android version, although it exports Watch data that has synced into Health on the iPhone like everything else.

After the switch: verify before you erase the old phone

The old phone is the only complete backup you have. Do not give it up until you have checked the new one.

• Pick a number you can compare. Total steps for a specific past month, the date of your oldest workout, your oldest weight entry. Something specific and old.
• Look it up on the old phone and write it down. Then look up the same thing on the new phone. A match on an old figure means the history came across. A match on last week's step count only means last week came across.
• Check a second category. Sleep and workouts do not always land with the step count.
• If you took an export, compare against the files too. That is the copy that does not depend on either phone.
• Then erase the old phone, and not before. Give it a few days if you can.

If something is missing, you still have the old device, which means you still have options. That is the entire reason this checklist runs in this order.

The exporter from step 2 lives at spookwerk.app/apps/vitadatum, with the App Store link on that page.

FAQ

Does Apple Health data transfer to a new iPhone automatically?

Only through a path that carries it: a device-to-device Quick Start transfer, an iCloud backup with Health enabled, or an encrypted computer backup. Apple states that if a computer backup isn't encrypted, Health and Activity data won't transfer.

Do I need an encrypted backup to keep my Health data?

For a computer (Finder/iTunes) backup, yes. Encryption is what includes Health and Activity data. For iCloud, make sure Health is switched on in your iCloud settings.

Can Vitadatum restore my Health data onto my new iPhone?

No. Vitadatum exports your Health data to JSON and CSV files you keep. It does not write data back into the Health app. Apple's backup or iCloud sync is what moves your data to the new phone. The export is your own independent copy in case that doesn't go as planned.

How far back does the export go?

The free tier exports the last 7 days as JSON. The one-time €4.99 unlock removes that limit and exports as far back as Apple Health lets the app read, which on recent iOS versions depends on the history window you granted when you gave it access. CSV export is part of the same unlock.

Where do the exported files go?

To your iPhone, or to a folder you choose, including iCloud Drive or anywhere reachable via the Files app. The app uploads nothing to Spookwerk. There are no accounts and no servers.

Spookwerk