What does a running heatmap actually show?
A heatmap is a density visualization. Instead of drawing each route as a single thin line, it bins your GPS points onto a grid and colors each cell by how often you've passed through it. Streets you've run hundreds of times glow bright; one-time detours appear faint.
That's different from a route map (which shows the path of one workout) and different from a lifetime map (which draws every route as overlapping polylines). The heatmap is the only view that gives you a real answer to "where do I run the most?"
There are two flavours of heatmap in the wild:
- Personal heatmap - just your routes, only your data. This is what most runners actually want.
- Global heatmap - aggregated anonymously across millions of users. Useful for finding popular routes in a new city; useless for seeing your own running.
The free maps you'll find online are almost always global. The personal one is where the paywalls sit.
Why Strava's Heatmap costs $79.99/year
Strava made the personal Heatmap a paid feature in May 2018 as part of its "Summit" subscription, now just called "Strava Premium" or "Subscription." The current US price is $79.99/year or $11.99/month. The Global Heatmap remains free to view at any zoom, but it shows everyone's data, not yours. To see your own routes drawn as a personal heatmap, you need a paid subscription.
From a feature-cost standpoint, it's hard to justify. The rendering happens client-side, the data is yours, and the underlying calculation (binning GPS points to a grid) is one of the cheapest operations on a phone. The paywall is positioning - personal heatmap is one of Strava's strongest "I should subscribe" hooks, so they keep it premium.
You don't have to play along.
How do you make a running heatmap free on iPhone?
If your runs are recorded by any app that writes to Apple Health - Strava (free tier), Garmin Connect, Nike Run Club, Apple Fitness, AllTrails - the GPS data is already on your phone. You just need an app that reads HealthKit and renders it as a heatmap. The free option for that is MoveMap.
Install MoveMap from the App Store
Free, iPhone-only, no account required. Search "MoveMap" in the App Store or use the download link at the bottom of this article.
Grant Health read access
On first launch, MoveMap asks for read access to your workouts in Apple Health. Tap "Allow." This is the only permission the app requests. No account, no email, no location-while-running prompt - it reads exclusively from data you've already given to Apple Health.
Switch from Recency mode to Heat mode
Once your routes have imported, you'll see them on the map color-coded by recency (newer runs brighter, older runs faded). At the top of the screen there's a two-icon pill toggle: a clock icon and a flame icon. Tap the flame - the map redraws as a heatmap. Streets you've run repeatedly glow amber; rare routes stay dim.
Filter to what you want to see
Use the filter at the bottom to limit the heatmap to a single activity type (only runs, only rides), and use the timeline scrubber on the right edge to limit it to a specific year. Both filters update the heatmap live.
Free tier limit: MoveMap free shows your last 12 months of GPS data, which is enough for most heatmaps to look meaningful. To extend back further (up to 10 years), you'd need Pro (with a 7-day trial on monthly) or the one-time Lifetime unlock.
When should you use a heatmap vs the route view?
Both views show your running, but they answer different questions. Use whichever fits what you're trying to learn.
Use heatmap when: you want to see your running territory. The shape of the neighborhood you actually cover. Streets you've never explored that are right next to streets you run every day. Gaps in your city coverage. Heatmap is the answer to "what's my running footprint?"
Use route map when: you want to see a specific path. A single workout. A vacation trip you took. The day you ran the half marathon. Route map preserves the line of each individual run; heatmap collapses everything into density.
Most runners flip between the two regularly. MoveMap's mode toggle keeps the camera position when you switch, so you can look at the same neighborhood as both a heatmap and a route map without re-zooming.
Other heatmap tools, compared honestly
If MoveMap isn't a fit, here are the other ways to get a personal running heatmap. None are as fast or as integrated as reading directly from Apple Health, but they all work.
Strava Premium
The original. Beautiful rendering, well-integrated into the Strava app. Personal Heatmap is part of the $79.99/year subscription and uses only routes you've recorded in Strava.
Wandrer
Wandrer ($30/year) takes street coverage to its logical extreme - it tells you the percentage of streets in your city you've run, with a heatmap-style visualization and a leaderboard for completionists. Connects via Strava import.
jonblack.me / HeatmapVisualizer
A handful of free web tools let you upload GPX files and generate a heatmap on a static page. They work, but you'd need to manually export every activity as a GPX file from each app first. Realistic only if you have a small number of workouts.
MoveMap
Reads Apple Health directly, no manual import. Free tier covers the last 12 months. Heat and Recency modes share the same map camera. Pro and Lifetime extend the time range.
Frequently asked questions
Does the heatmap include walks and hikes, or only runs?
It includes everything Apple Health has tagged as a workout with GPS data: runs, walks, hikes, bike rides, paddles. You can filter to a single activity type if you only want to see one. Most people leave it on "all" - that's how you see your real movement footprint.
Can I make a heatmap for just one city or one year?
Yes. Pinch and pan the map to the city you want; the heatmap automatically reflects what's in view. For year filtering, use the timeline scrubber on the right edge - drag the handles to select a date range and the heatmap updates live.
Does my data leave my iPhone?
No. MoveMap reads from HealthKit locally and renders the heatmap on-device. There's no server, no account, no upload. Even the street network used to overlay the map comes from OpenStreetMap's public Overpass API - a bounding box request that contains no personal data and no GPS coordinates from your routes.
What if my runs are split across Strava, Garmin, and Nike Run Club?
That's the point of reading from Apple Health. As long as each of those apps has its Apple Health sync turned on (most are on by default), their workouts all land in the same Health database. MoveMap reads all of them together - your Strava trail run from 2022, your Garmin marathon last fall, and last week's Nike Run Club tempo run all appear on the same heatmap.
Can I export the heatmap as an image?
The Year in Review postcard exports a styled 1080x1920 image of your routes from the selected year. The heat-mode view itself isn't currently a dedicated export, but a screenshot from your iPhone captures it at full Retina resolution and is share-ready for Instagram or social.