How many steps did I walk last year?

January 17, 2018 12:06 PM

I use the built-in Health app on my iphone as a casual pedometer. I am able to see the daily totals and part-day totals, but not a weekly/monthly/annual total. Is there a way to pull this data? Google tells me I can do this with a fitbit or other monitor, but I don't have one of those units. Thanks!
posted by stillmoving to Technology (8 answers total)

Your solution might just be doing an update. Since I’ve updated I can now click to see week/month/year averages. You could get the totals by multiplying by 7/30/365
posted by raccoon409 at 12:12 PM on January 17, 2018

Response by poster: Thank you! I forgot to add that I'm using an iphone 5S with an old software and trying to avoid the iOs update if possible.

I'm interested in finding the total because the steps I have walked greatly vary--some days over 45K, others only 2000, so unfortunately the averaging won't work for this purpose!
posted by stillmoving at 12:28 PM on January 17, 2018

I don't know about the updates, but to clarify: the average multiplied by the number of days will give you your actual total regardless of the individual daily breakdown. So, if you can see the daily average, multiplying by 365 as raccoon409 suggests will give you your actual yearly total.
posted by papayaninja at 12:37 PM on January 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

If your old version of the Health app tells you your daily average for a specific period, you have what you need. E.g. if your daily average for 2017 was 1234 steps, multiply by 365 to get your annual total for 2017.
posted by caek at 12:38 PM on January 17, 2018

Response by poster: Sorry to threadist. Thanks for the clarification re averages, didn't realize that it gave me a daily average. The other problem, though, is that I can't set parameters for dates--or can I?

Thanks again :)
posted by stillmoving at 12:56 PM on January 17, 2018

A cautionary note: I've tested the phone pedometer against my Fitbit, and the phone is sorely lacking. It might be the way I carry it sometimes, but there are very few steps I take without my phone--and it can be off by thousands each day. Another friend had the iPhone pedometer telling him that he was taking 40,000 steps to my 5,000 when we had been walking together. So I guess just keep that in mind!
posted by clone boulevard at 1:14 PM on January 17, 2018

Lots of iOS pedometer apps can do this and present the Health app data in a better way.

I've been using the paid version of StepsApp for most of the past year after trying a few alternatives and feel pretty consistently happy with it. That version definitely lets you see monthly and yearly step totals—as well as a 12-month rolling total that I really like—but I don't think the free version is quite as flexible from glancing at friends' screens. It also lets you see specific days totals (and hourly step counts) which is pretty cool.

I agree with the other comments that the counts that iOS devices pick up can be misleading, but definitely seem worse if you normally keep your phone anywhere but your pocket. Heck, I feel like wearing suspenders instead of a belt is enough to dampen the numbers I get sometimes.
posted by caliche at 1:29 PM on January 17, 2018

Quantified Self's free Access app will let you export any data from Health.app. Generate a table of Steps per day, sum the column and you're done.
posted by mumkin at 1:43 PM on January 17, 2018