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How to sync Oura Ring steps to Apple Health

Your Oura Ring does not send steps to Apple Health by itself. The Oura app on your iPhone does, once you connect it. After that, your ring’s steps show up in Apple Health next to your iPhone’s own count, and any app with access to Health can read them.

The short answer

In the Oura app, open the menu at the top left, tap Settings, and under Data sharing tap Apple Health. Turn on Connect to Health and allow Steps.

You need an Oura Membership

Oura shares your data with Apple Health only while you have an active Oura Membership. That’s Oura’s rule: without a membership, your steps stay in the Oura app. On Android, the Oura app shares with Health Connect instead. Our support page has the steps.

Step by step

  1. Open the Oura app and tap the menu at the top left of the home screen.
  2. Tap Settings.
  3. Under Data sharing, tap Apple Health.
  4. Turn on Connect to Health, and allow Steps in the permissions that appear.
  5. Check that it worked: in the Health app, go to Steps, scroll down and tap Data Sources & Access. Oura should be on the list.

Why steps can arrive late

Oura writes to Apple Health after the ring syncs with the app. Its help page lists three things that can hold an update back: not opening both apps before midnight, Background App Refresh being off, and Low Power Mode being on. Oura’s advice is to open both the Oura app and the Health app at least once a day.

If your steps look doubled or too low

If you also carry your iPhone, it counts the same walk. Health does not add the two counts together: the source at the top of the list wins. Oura recommends putting Oura at the top for steps:

  1. In the Health app, go to Steps → Data Sources & Access.
  2. Tap Edit, then touch and hold the handle next to Oura and drag it to the top.

Oura also notes that different devices can report different step counts for the same day, because each one uses its own threshold for what counts as activity. A small gap between the Oura app and another tracker is normal.

More wearables

Using more than one device, or a different brand? How to sync your wearable’s steps to Apple Health covers Garmin, Fitbit and Polar too, and points to WHOOP’s steps.

Walking with a finish line

The hard part of walking more is not the walking. It is having a reason to go out today. reTrek gives your walks a finish line: pick a famous route, like the Camino de Santiago or the Inca Trail, and every walk moves you further along it, with a short film about the place waiting at each milestone. Instead of fitting in a walk for its own sake, you walk to reach the next milestone.

Everest Base Camp is free. Get reTrek.

Sources: Apple Health integration, Oura Help · Manage Health data on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, Apple Support