How to delete part of a Strava activity

Strava can crop the start and the end of an activity, and split it into separate activities. If you want to remove a wrong turn, a long stop, or a stretch where the GPS wandered through a building, you need to edit the file itself and upload it again. This takes about two minutes.

What Strava's crop can and can't do

On the activity page, the three-dot menu has a Crop option. It shows two handles, one at the start and one at the end, and you drag them inward. That is fine for a warm-up you don't want or the walk back to the car.

Crop can't remove anything in between. Strava's workaround for the middle is to split the activity first and crop the pieces, but that only works on GPS rides and runs, and it leaves you with separate activities instead of one. Strava also can't merge or fix the numbers, so for one clean activity the fix is the same: edit the original file, then replace the activity.

Step 1: get the original file from Strava

1. Open the activity on the Strava website.
2. Click the three-dot menu and choose Export Original.
3. Strava downloads the file your device uploaded. From a Garmin, Wahoo, COROS, or similar device that is a .fit file.

If the file comes down as .gpx or .tcx, it was recorded by an app that doesn't write FIT. The editor opens those too and exports the result as a .fit, which Strava takes.

Step 2: cut the section

1. Open the file in FIT File Editor. Drag it onto the page or press browse.
2. The whole activity sits on a timeline under the map. Drag across the part you want gone. The map highlights the same stretch so you can see exactly what you are removing.
3. Press Cut. The two sides join up, the laps around the gap are adjusted, and the distance, time, and averages are recalculated from what is left.
4. You can cut more than one section. Undo is there if you overshoot.
5. Press Export and save the new file.

Nothing is uploaded during any of this. The file is decoded and written back in your browser.

Step 3: replace the Strava activity

1. On Strava, delete the original activity. If you upload first, Strava will see two activities with overlapping times and reject the new one as a duplicate.
2. Upload the edited file from the plus menu, or drag it onto the upload page.
3. Check the map and the totals. Kudos and comments on the old activity don't carry over, so do this soon after the activity if that matters to you.

A few things worth knowing

• The gap becomes a pause. The two ends are joined with a stop and a start, so moving time and elapsed time both stay honest.
• Segments are re-matched. Strava matches segments from the new file, so any that were inside the cut section disappear, and the rest stay.
• Garmin Connect works the same way. Delete the original there too before uploading, or it will flag a duplicate. There is a separate guide on the duplicate activity message.

For the short version of the tool itself, see Crop a FIT file.