Plug the Garmin in, connect it on the Device page, and press send. INVIA writes the file into the folder your exact model reads, so you never look for it. That is why there is no Garmin Express to open, no BaseCamp to install and no folder to hunt for. Press ↺ Refresh to read the Garmin again, so you are confirming the file from the device itself rather than trusting a message on screen.
This works on Garmins that mount as a USB drive and on Garmins that never appear on your computer, so you do not need to know which kind yours is before you start. INVIA is the only web application outside Garmin that sends files to a Garmin over the media transfer protocol, straight from a browser tab.
INVIA tests on the hardware. The folder names, the waiting times and the restart behaviour come from the Garmin models they name, so you are reading what your Garmin does rather than what a forum thread says. Where a model has not been checked, its page says so rather than leaving you to guess.
The two ways a Garmin connects#
Which way your Garmin connects depends on the exact model rather than on how new it is, because Garmin still sells USB drive models alongside file transfer models. A Garmin bought last year can be either one, so check yours rather than assuming.
| File transfer | USB drive | |
|---|---|---|
| What you see | Nothing appears on your computer | A drive or folder appears |
| On the device | Keeps running normally | Hands its storage to the computer |
| Examples | Zumo XT, Tread, GPSMAP 67, eTrex SE, Montana 760i | Montana 700, GPSMAP 64, Oregon, older eTrex |
To find out which kind you have, plug the Garmin in and watch your computer, because a USB drive model puts a drive or folder there and a file transfer model puts nothing. Nothing appearing is a file transfer Garmin working as designed rather than a fault, so press File transfer (MTP) and INVIA connects to it. INVIA handles both kinds, and the pages below cover each family.
What lands on the device#
- The route as a track, so the Garmin draws the exact line you planned instead of recalculating it on its own map.
- Your named waypoints as the Garmin's saved places, never as a list of via-points, so no stray line joins them together.
- Your route colour, matched to the nearest colour a Garmin knows, because a Garmin ignores a hex value and would show the route in a default colour instead.
- Direction arrows, if you ask for them, drawn into the line itself, so a complicated junction reads correctly on a small screen. There is no setting to find on the Garmin.
Use a memory card in a Zumo XT2, Zumo XT3 or Tread#
Fit a memory card in a Zumo XT2, Zumo XT3 or Tread, and choose it when you send.
A Zumo XT2, Zumo XT3 or Tread does not keep a sent route as a file. On the next restart it takes the route into its own storage and clears the file it arrived in. The route still rides normally on the Garmin, and INVIA has nothing left to list, so that route drops out of your device list. Your waypoints keep appearing, because the Garmin stores those separately.
Send to a memory card instead and the Garmin still imports the route, and the file survives the restart, so you keep the route on the device and the copy in INVIA. Why routes disappear, and which card to fit.
Advice you will find elsewhere that does not work#
Much of what ranks for this question was written for older hardware, or for watches and cycling computers rather than for a Zumo, Tread, Montana, GPSMAP or eTrex. That advice sends you to folders and applications your Garmin does not use.
- "Open the GARMIN drive." A Zumo XT, a Zumo XT2, any Tread, a GPSMAP 67 and an eTrex SE never mount as a drive on any computer. Press File transfer (MTP) on the Device page instead, because there is no drive to open.
- "Drag it into Garmin Express." Garmin Express updates maps and software, so a route dragged into it never reaches the Garmin. Send the route from INVIA instead.
- "Put it in the NewFiles folder." NewFiles is real on some handhelds, and it is an inbox rather than a home. The Garmin converts what you leave there on the next restart and then removes the file, so the route is on the Garmin and the file is not in NewFiles. The GPX folder is where a file stays and is read from every time, which is why INVIA writes there and each page below names the folder your model uses.
- "On a Mac, install Android File Transfer." That is the most repeated Mac answer and it is no longer dependable. Chrome or Edge talks to the Garmin directly, so a Mac needs nothing else installed.
What you need#
Sending over the cable works in Chrome or Edge, because those are the only browsers that let a web page talk to a USB device or open a drive. Everything else in INVIA works in any browser, so the limit is on the cable and nothing else.
On Windows you also need INVIA Bridge, a small free background application that installs once and lets the browser reach the Garmin. You need it whether your Garmin connects by file transfer or as a drive, so install it once and it covers every Garmin you plug in. On a Mac nothing extra is required, so Chrome or Edge is the whole list.
Recorded rides come back the same way. Connect the Garmin and every track and activity on it is listed and drawn on a map, so you pick what to keep by looking at the lines rather than at filenames. The ones you pick are saved to your library, and the ones you leave stay on the Garmin.