While most of us use a variety of apps to track our health and activity, one of the major pain points is that many apps don’t communicate with each other. You have to open each app to review its information and then manually connect the dots between them.
Apple users know it’s a heck of a lot easier to have a single app act organize your health data in one place. That’s precisely what Apple’s Health app does.
Unfortunately, those of us that use Android and Samsung devices did not have this “under one roof” capability until now, with the release of Health Connect by Android.
Health Connect is a service that allows apps like Samsung Health and Google Fit to talk to each other and other third-party apps so that you can organize your health data in one place and see all of your health and fitness data together. And it makes tracking your health and fitness so much easier!
Let’s learn how.
Contents
- 1 Health Connect is a service, not an app
- 2 How to setup Health Connect by Android
- 3 What apps support Health Connect?
- 4 How to remove an app’s permission to sync to Health Connect
- 5 How to disable or delete data from Health Connect
- 6 Is Health Connect by Android not working or syncing data? Try these tips
- 7 Final thoughts
Related reading
Health Connect is a service, not an app
Before we set it up, it’s important to note that Health Connect is not a standalone app. You won’t open Health Connect like you do Fitbit, Google Fit, or Samsung Health. Instead, Health Connect is a service that links apps together so they can share and sync data between them.
Ideally, you select a single app, usually Google Fit or Samsung Health, that you want to be your health and fitness hub.
You choose which app makes the most sense for you and your devices–for example, if you use a Samsung phone and watch, you likely want Samsung Health to collect all your data.
The good news is that Health Connect doesn’t choose for you–it’s your choice which app(s) you want to be your hub–as long as that app supports Health Connect.
Health Connect syncs with all your Android devices, wearables, smart devices like scales, continuous glucose monitoring systems, heart rate and blood pressure monitors, and apps that track things like nutrition, sleep, activity, and body measurements.
You choose which categories of data you want to share (or not share), and Health Connect encrypts and stores that data locally on the device rather than in the cloud to protect your privacy further.
How to setup Health Connect by Android
The good news is that it’s fairly easy to start using Health Connect.
First, if your Android device runs Android 13 or below, you must install Health Connect (currently in beta) on your phone. Once you install Health Connect, you cannot uninstall it since Google considers it a system app. However, you can disable it. 
Starting with the release of Android 14 (later this year,) Google is making Health Connect a part of Android’s system files, and it will automatically install when you update your software to Android 14+.
- Open Health Connect from inside the Play Store, via Settings > Apps > Health Connect > Open, or using your phone’s Quick Settings panel.
- Tap App permissions.
- Choose the app(s) you want to link with Health Connect.
- You see all the supported apps that you already installed on your phone.
- You see all the supported apps that you already installed on your phone.
- Toggle on Allow all or choose which data permissions you want that app to share with Health Connect.
- We recommend selecting Allow all.
- Some apps read and write, while others only write or read. For example, Fitbit only writes data to Health Connect–it does not read data.
- Repeat for all apps that you want to sync with Health Connect. Once connected, apps sync to Health Connect throughout the day. Recent data might take up to 15 minutes to appear.
- Go to Health Connects main settings via Settings > Apps > Health Connect and choose App battery usage. Set Health Connect to Unrestricted to allow it to update in the background continually.
- We recommend also allowing unrestricted app battery usage for all the apps you link to Health Connect.
After setting up your permissions, don’t delete the companion apps, even if you no longer open them. Health Connect relies on these apps to sync and share data across platforms.
You grant permission to read and write data to Health Connect when you allow access for the last 30 days and any new data written after that. Connected apps continue storing any data they share with Health Connect on their own servers or your device.
You’ll also find an option for Health Connect in each supported app
Sometimes, you won’t see the option for your app inside Health Connect until you allow it from inside the supported app.
Or you might not see data flowing from Health Connect to that app until you also enable Health Connect inside the app.
We won’t cover all apps here, but here are some of the most popular.
- For Samsung Health, tap the Menu icon (three dots) at the top and choose Settings > Health Connect.
- For Google Fit, tap the Profile tab > Settings icon (gear) > Health Connect. Toggle on Sync Fit with Health Connect.
- For Fitbit, tap your profile picture or icon. Scroll down and select Health Connect. Toggle on Sync with Health Connect.
- For Withings Health Mate, tap the profile tab, scroll down to the Apps section, and tap Health Connect.
- For MyFitnessPal, go to More button > Apps & Devices > Health Connect.
- For Peloton, open the Peloton app on your phone or tablet > Profile tab > More button > Add-ons > Health Connect.
- For Oura, choose the Home tab > Settings > Data Sharing > Health Connect > Open Health Connect.
What apps support Health Connect? 
Health Connect supports many of the apps you use daily, including popular apps like MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, Samsung Health, Whoop, Sleep as Android, Withings Health Mate, Oura, Google Fit, Peloton, Weight Watchers, Dexcom, and more to come. To date, there are over 100 apps that work with Health Connect!
The good news is that some apps, like Samsung Health, Google Fit, Oura, and Google Fit, are two-way and can both read data from Health Connect and write data to Health Connect.
Unfortunately, some apps like Fitbit are one-way and can only upload data (write) to Health Connect. Even with Health Connect, Fitbit cannot read and show data from other apps.
To see the current list, see this support page.
What data does Health Connect share? 
Health Connect supports a bunch of metrics and data types, from all your workouts and fitness activity to core vitals like heart rate and blood oxygen saturation, body measurements, nutrition information, and even menstration and fertility tracking and blood glucose readings.
Health Connect tracks these data categories:
- Activity captures any activity that you do, such as running, swimming and cycling.
- Body Measurement captures common data related to your body, such as weight, or basal metabolic rate.
- Cycle Tracking captures menstrual cycles and related data points, such as the result of an ovulation test.
- Nutrition captures hydration and nutrition data types, including optional fields such as calories, sugar intake and magnesium content.
- Sleep captures interval data related to the length and type of your sleep.
- Vitals captures essential information about the your general health, including everything from blood glucose to body temperature and blood oxygen saturation.
You also get important analytics like your VO2 Max (also called cardio fitness,) bone mass, and sleep stage information.
Remeber that Health Connect does not gather any data on its own. Instead it acts as an intermediary to allow all your health and fitness apps to share data with each other.
How to remove an app’s permission to sync to Health Connect
- Go to Settings > Apps > Health Connect and tap Open.
- Tap App permissions.
- To remove an individual app’s permission, select an app and toggle off Allow all or each granted permission.
- To remove all apps’ permissions, scroll down and tap Remove access for all apps at the bottom of the screen.
- Confirm by tapping Remove all.
- Removing access does not delete previous data but prevents any new data from syncing between apps and storing inside Health Connect.
How to disable or delete data from Health Connect
While you cannot delete Health Connect, you can disable it entirely or pick and choose what data to share–Google gives you a lot of flexibility on how you manage Health Connect’s data.
How to disable Health Connect
- Open Health Connect via Settings > Apps > Health Connect.
- Under App info, tap Disable.
- Confirm by pressing Disable app. This turns off the service and hides it.
How to delete data from Health Connect
Inside Health Connect’s settings, you can choose to delete all data, data from a selected app, or even specific dates or categories of data.
Just remember that when you remove data from Health Connect, you aren’t deleting it from its source. This process removes data from Health Connect, but the app where the data came from retains it.
If you want to delete the data that Health Connect stores from your apps, follow these steps to delete data app by app:
- Go to Settings > Apps > Health Connect and tap Open. Tap App permissions.
- Select an app.
- Scroll all the way down, and under Manage app, tap Delete data.
- Select the timeframe you wish to delete from. Options include 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, and delete all data.
You can also delete all of Health Connect data at once
- Go to Settings > Apps > Health Connect and tap Open.
- Choose Data and access.
- Scroll down and tap Delete all data.
- Select the timeframe you wish to delete from. Options include 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, and delete all data.
- To permanently delete the data, tap Next, then tap Delete.
And if you want to delete a category of data, tap that category and choose to delete just that type of data.
Is Health Connect by Android not working or syncing data? Try these tips
To troubleshoot this issue, you can try the following steps:
- Check Health Connect’s data permissions: Confirm that you granted all necessary permissions for data syncing between your apps and Health Connect.
- Open any connected apps that aren’t synching or working and reauthorize Health Connect inside the app’s settings: Re-establishing their connection often resolves syncing and other communications issues.
- Allow Health Connect and all its connected apps to unrestricted battery usage for background activity.
- Go to Health Connect AND the apps’ main settings via Settings > Apps. Select your app and choose App battery usage. Set to Unrestricted to allow it to update in the background continually.
- Repeat for all apps so each app, including Health Connect, has unrestricted background access.
- Update apps: Check that all the apps involved run their latest available versions. Keep your apps updated to fix bugs and improve compatibility.
Final thoughts
We love using a variety of apps to track our health and fitness. But one of the major downsides to using different apps was that data wasn’t shared with others apps, especially the major Health hub apps like Withings Health Mate, Samsung Health, or Google Fit.
But now, Google’s Health Connect by Android helps organize and manage all health data by letting your apps finally talk to each other and share data for your activity, body measurement, sleep, vitals, and more!
Using Health Connect helps these hub apps show you a comprehensive picture of your fitness and health–connecting the dots that single apps cannot do on their own.
That’s Google’s goal–for Health Connect to allow all your health and fitness apps to share and use the same on-device data, in a unified ecosystem!
