Import and export

INVIA reads GPX, KML and FIT files and writes GPX, so a route built in another tool comes in whole and a route you own goes back out to any GPS. Nothing reaches your library until you confirm the import, which means you always see what INVIA made of a file first.

Three ways a file gets in#

1. Press Import on the Home page or on the Collections page.
2. Drag the file onto the map.
3. Import from a connected Garmin.

The file picker accepts a TCX file and the import then rejects it, because TCX is not supported yet. No route and no ride is created from it, and the routes, rides and waypoints you already have are untouched. Convert the file to GPX or FIT, then import it again.

A route or a ride#

A route is a plan, an editable line you built or imported to ride. A ride is a record your GPS wrote while you rode it, which is why INVIA keeps the two apart and decides which is which from the file itself.

The import dialog names what it detected for each file, and you can override it before anything is saved. A track INVIA read as a ride lands as an editable route instead when you choose Route.

A Recorded Ride is read-only, so convert the ride to a route when you want to edit the line.

Free accounts hold 25 imported items, which counts the files you import and the routes and rides you save from other riders in one total. A file holding several tracks counts as one item while it is kept together, so a twelve-stage pack costs one of the 25 rather than twelve. Pro removes the limit. Formats and packaging.

Turning a ride into a route#

Two tools do this and they move different things, so the one you pick decides whether your waypoints come across.

Convert to Route on the ride card makes a route copy named with (route), and the ride stays in place carrying every waypoint it had. The copy does not carry those waypoints, so reach for Reclassify routes when you want them to move as well.

Reclassify routes on the legacy Rides page finds built routes filed as rides, downloads a JSON backup whose name starts with invia-rides-backup-, then converts them. The converted items are no longer on the Rides page and sit on your Routes list instead, carrying their waypoints, ratings, description and collection memberships. Keep the backup file, because it holds those rides as they were.

The summary counts how many converted and how many failed, and a ride that failed is still on the Rides page exactly as it was. INVIA removes a ride only after the new route has been written, so a failure means nothing was created and nothing was deleted, and that ride keeps its waypoints, ratings and collections. The count does not name the failures, so run Reclassify routes again on whatever is still listed. A ride with no line in it is greyed out, marked No geometry, can't convert, and cannot be selected at all.

There is no conversion the other way, so a route never becomes a ride and stays editable in your library. To get a ride, record it on your GPS and import the track.

One file, one item#

A file holding several tracks is kept together as one collection named after the file, rather than scattering a twelve-stage route pack into twelve loose items. Every track in the file is listed inside that collection, so no track is dropped. The option reads Keep each file together as one item, and splitting a file into separate items is Pro.

Every waypoint in the file goes into your waypoint library and attaches to the nearest track in that same file within a kilometer, while waypoints no track claims stay with the collection. A waypoint sitting within 15 meters of one you already have is skipped rather than saved twice, so the one you already had stays where it is with its name and notes. The rest of the file still imports.

Open in Builder loads a track for editing and saves nothing, which is why the track is on screen while no route and no ride reaches your library. Import the file instead when you want to keep it.

When INVIA has seen the file before#

INVIA checks every file against your rides before it saves anything, and flags a file only when all three tests match one item you already have.

A flagged file shows appears to already be in your Library and names the item it matched. Press Import Anyway and the warning clears, so that file imports with the rest. Press Skip instead and that file is unticked, while every other file in the batch still imports.

Built routes carry no timestamps, so those three tests never fire on them and INVIA adopts the item you already have. Adoption happens when the target collection already holds an item with the same name and the same length, which means the collection holds one copy of each route rather than two. The summary counts how many items were already there, and says nothing new was imported when every one of them was.

An edit you made to the line since the last import does not reach the route you already have. The length is matched to about a hundredth of a mile, so a line you changed almost always changes the length with it and the file arrives as a second route. When the length still matches, INVIA keeps the route it has and leaves its line, name and color as they were.

There is nothing to undo, because the existing route keeps its collection membership and the waypoints in the re-imported file are saved to your waypoint library and attached to it. A corrected set of fuel stops or camps does reach it, which makes the waypoints the one part of the file a repeat import brings across. Duplicates and bulk import.

Bulk import, a Pro tool#

Bulk import takes over when you drop a folder, or 20 or more files, because a batch that size needs a preview before anything is saved. It parses every file, groups the tracks by year and month, tags each track by region read from its start point, and checks every track against your library for duplicates.

The preview screen counts the tracks it found and breaks them down by year and by region.

One row counts the duplicates found and Review Duplicates names them, while another row counts the unreadable files and Review Errors names those. Unreadable files are never imported, and every readable file still imports, which means one bad file in a folder holds up nothing else. To bring in a file that was skipped as a duplicate, drop the files again and untick Skip duplicates before you confirm.

A file skipped as a duplicate is not imported, so nothing from it reaches your library and the file itself is untouched wherever you dropped it from. The item it matched is not changed either, which means its name, its notes and the collections it sits in are exactly as they were. All INVIA does with that match is read the name for the Review Duplicates list.

When the import finishes you get a count of the items imported, the duplicates skipped and the errors skipped, with the same breakdown by year and by region.

Clean up: duplicate routes, a Pro tool#

Clean up on the Home page opens Clean up library, which compares routes by shape rather than by name, because the same road imported twice rarely arrives under the same name.

Copies sharing one name are ticked for you, while copies with different names are marked REVIEW and never ticked, so you decide on those yourself. INVIA marks one row KEEP in each group and ranks the copies by collection membership, by the comments, votes, tags, ratings, reviews and photos attached, by description, then by waypoints.

The KEEP row has no checkbox, so one copy of each route always survives even when you tick every other row in the group. After you confirm, the removed copies leave your Routes list, the kept copy stays on it, and every collection that held a removed copy now holds the kept copy.

Comments, votes, tags, ratings, reviews and photos go with the copy they were left on, because they belong to that copy rather than to the route, and the kept copy keeps its own. A copy carrying any of them arrives with its box empty and a note on the row saying it has its own tags or comments, so there is nothing to untick. Leave the row as you found it and that copy stays with everything attached to it, and you lose those things only if you tick the row yourself.

Clean up works only on your own routes and cannot be undone once you confirm. If it deletes nothing it says so and names the likely reason, that the routes may not be yours, and every copy is still on your Routes list. When no duplicates remain, the panel says no duplicate routes were found and names how many routes it compared by shape.

Clean up: duplicate collections, a Pro tool#

Clean up on the Collections page finds collections sharing a name, or holding the exact same set of routes, and keeps the one with the most routes, then the oldest. The removed collections leave the Collections page while the kept collection stays with its routes inside, and the routes from the removed collections are in My Routes. The routes are never deleted. Select modes and clean-up.

The waypoint library carries a Clean up of its own for duplicate pins, orphans and source-file labels. Waypoint library and clean-up.

What exports and what does not#

Your own routes and rides always export, on every plan, while a collection exports only when you own every route inside it.

Press GPX on the card or Export GPX on the item page to download a standard GPX file. The file holds the track, your named waypoints as waypoint entries, and the route color written as Garmin's DisplayColor extension. Direction arrows are not a download option, because they are chosen in the send dialog instead.

Export is never offered on a route or ride you saved from another rider, since the file belongs to the rider who made it. GPX is hidden on its card and Export GPX is absent on its item page, while the copy stays in your library and still opens. You can send it to your device, so put it on your Garmin rather than downloading it. A route you loaded from another rider into the builder and saved as new keeps that provenance and does not export either.

A collection downloads as one file holding every route in it, in order, plus the package's waypoints. A collection holding a route saved from another rider is not offered that way, so GPX is not offered on that collection, which keeps another rider's route out of a downloaded bundle. The collection still opens, every route in it still opens and still sends to your device, and your own routes in it still export one at a time. Take the saved route out into a collection of its own and GPX comes back on the first collection.

GPX in select mode downloads the items you selected, and items that cannot be exported are skipped, so a mixed selection downloads your own routes only. The skipped items stay in your library, still open and still send to your device.

INVIA does not produce any other export format. Export rules.

What is in a GPX file#

GPX is the plain-text format every GPS speaks, which is how a route leaves INVIA, how a recorded ride comes back, and how anything moves between one GPS tool and another.

Your INVIA route reaches the Garmin as a track, so the device draws the line you built rather than recalculating it on its own map. Your named waypoints travel alongside as saved places, because sending them as a route of via-points makes a Garmin draw a stray gray line between them.

Garmin devices read the DisplayColor extension rather than a hex color, so INVIA writes that extension and matches your route color by hue to the nearest Garmin name. A Montana 700-series draws the line in that nearest name rather than the exact color you picked, while the shape of the line and your named waypoints are unchanged.

Set Directional arrows to Forward or Reverse in the send dialog and INVIA draws small chevrons into the track line itself, so a complex junction reads correctly on a small screen. The route still reaches the device as a track. GPX files.

Some navigation apps embed geocoded street-address cue points in a file, and INVIA drops those when you load a GPX through From computer. The cue points do not become pins or stops, while your real waypoints are kept, because INVIA sends a clean regenerated file rather than the file you picked. A GPX route you built elsewhere stays one complete route, since INVIA does not chop imported routes into segments.

Where the file lands on a Garmin#

INVIA knows the right folder for each model and puts the file there, so you choose the route and nothing else. Device table.

1. 1
   Formats and packaging

   What INVIA imports (GPX, KML, FIT), how it decides whether a file is a route or a ride, how multi-track files become one collection, and how waypoints are filed per file.

2. 2
   Duplicates and bulk import

   How INVIA catches duplicate imports, how re-imported route packs are adopted instead of copied, the Pro bulk importer for folders, and the clean-up tools for routes and collections.

3. 3
   Export rules

   When Export GPX is offered and when it is not: your own routes and rides always, community imports never, collections only when every member is yours, and what a download contains.

4. 4
   GPX files explained

   Tracks, routes and waypoints in a GPX file, how Garmin reads route color through the DisplayColor extension, direction arrows, cue-point cleanup, and where GPX files live on each Garmin.