How to reduce GPX points for a Garmin device

Garmin devices cap how many points a course or route can contain — often around 500 points on modern units, and as few as 200 on older ones. A GPX exported from a mapping site can easily have thousands of points, so it either fails to load or gets silently truncated. The fix is to reduce the point count while keeping the route's shape.

The quickest way (free, in your browser)

  1. Open the GPX point reducer.
  2. Drag your .gpx onto the map (nothing is uploaded).
  3. Under Reduce points, choose the Garmin course (500 pts) preset — or type any target.
  4. Click Reduce. Your point count drops instantly and the route shape is preserved.
  5. Click Download GPX and copy the file to your Garmin's NewFiles or Courses folder.

Which reduction should I use?

  • Max points — best for device limits. It keeps the most significant points of your track (across every segment) to hit your exact target, so the shape is preserved and a multi-lap file still lands on the limit.
  • Spacing (m) — keeps one point every N metres of travel. Great for evenly spaced breadcrumbs.
  • Simplify (m) — removes points that stray less than the given distance from the line. Good for cleaning up jitter.

You can run these as many times as you like — each starts from your full track, so you can go finer or coarser — or use Reset to start over.

Common Garmin point limits

  • Most Edge and Forerunner devices: ~500 course points
  • Older devices: ~200 points
  • When in doubt, 500 is a safe target for a turn-by-turn course.

See also GPX point limits by device.

Re-uploading an edited route to Strava afterwards? See how to fix Strava's “duplicate activity” error.

Open the reducer →