Guide
Move your Apple Health history to your Mac
Apple Health lives on your iPhone and nowhere else. Healthcove for Mac pulls your full history across your own Wi-Fi with an encrypted device-to-device transfer, so you can browse, chart, export, report on and query it from the desktop. No server in the middle, not even ours.
What you need
- Healthcove on both devices: iPhone (iOS 17 or later) and Mac (macOS 14 or later). One purchase covers both; Pro unlocks on every device signed in to the same Apple ID.
- Pro on the iPhone (the 7-day trial counts). Device-to-device sync is a Pro feature.
- Both devices on the same Wi-Fi network, with Local Network permission allowed for Healthcove on the iPhone. Guest networks and routers with client isolation block device-to-device traffic. The transfer uses IPv4; an IPv6-only network won't find the phone.
Pair the Mac with your iPhone
- On the iPhone open Settings → Pair Device and tap Start Sharing. The screen shows a 6-digit pairing code and, next to it, a 4-letter verify code.
- On the Mac open Settings → LAN Sync, pick your iPhone under Devices on Network, tap Pair… and enter the 6-digit code. (If the Mac can't see the phone, tap Copy Pairing Data on the iPhone and paste it into the Mac app instead.)
- After the Mac connects it shows the same 4 letters. Tap Matches only if they match the iPhone. If they differ, choose Doesn't Match; something else on the network answered.
- Keep the iPhone on the Pair screen until the Mac reports it's paired. Leaving the screen interrupts the handshake. The app keeps the display awake while you're there.
Pairing establishes a TLS connection with certificate pinning between the two devices. The pairing token is stored in the Keychain on each device and never synced anywhere.
Sync, and keep it synced
- On the Mac, with the iPhone paired and on its Pair screen, tap Pull Health Data. The first run transfers your whole history; years of data with hundreds of thousands of samples take a few minutes.
- Later runs are started the same way. Last Sync shows what the previous pull brought over, and Full Resync under More sync options fetches everything again if you ever want a clean copy.
On iOS 27, Apple lets you share only recent history with an app. If you chose that, Healthcove shows a notice in Sync Settings naming the earliest date it can read, and picks up the older data automatically if you widen the permission in the Health app.
What you can do on the Mac
- Browse, chart and get insights across everything that has synced.
- Export to CSV, JSON, Markdown, GPX, TCX and FIT, and produce HTML or PDF health reports (Pro), all from the desktop.
- Import an Apple Health export or an earlier Healthcove file. On the Mac this adds to the local store; writing back into Apple Health is an iPhone-only option.
- Serve an AI assistant through the local MCP server, which reads the synced data and works while the iPhone is away. See the AI export guide.
Troubleshooting
The Mac can't find the iPhone
Confirm both are on the same Wi-Fi (not a Guest network or cellular), both are unlocked, and Local Network permission is allowed for Healthcove in iOS Settings. Client isolation on some routers blocks discovery; the Copy Pairing Data route often works when discovery doesn't. IPv6-only networks aren't supported.
The transfer stops part-way
Leaving the Pair screen on the iPhone ends the session. Go back to Settings → Pair Device on the phone and tap Pull Health Data on the Mac again.
Pairing worked before and now fails
Remove the paired device on both sides and pair again. Certificates are pinned at pairing time, so a reinstall on either device needs a fresh pairing.
Something looks missing on the Mac
Run Full Resync from More sync options. It fetches the complete history again rather than only what's new.