How to add a custom activity type to a Garmin watch

Garmin watches are relatively unrivaled when it comes to the sheer amount of sports profiles on offer, but that’s not to say they’re all immediately available from the favorites list.

Luckily, many of the top outdoor watches in Garmin’s arsenal allow you to expand the list of activity profiles beyond running, cycling, and swimming, with some also enabling you to manually add your own activity type.

Doing so is extremely straightforward if you do have a compatible Garmin device, and below we’ll run through the steps to do exactly that.

Adding an activity profile to a Garmin watch

If there’s a niche activity that doesn’t appear in your favorites list that you want quicker access to, follow the steps below:

1. Press the ‘Start/Stop’ button.
2. Scroll down to ‘Add’. 
3. Navigate through the activity types such as ‘Outdoor’ and ‘Running’ to narrow down your choice.
4. Once selected, use the ‘Up/Down’ buttons to choose its place in your favorites list. 

Adding a personalized activity profile

If there’s an activity profile that’s not available to plug into your favorites list, you can still add it and tinker with the data screens as you would with any other profile. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Press the ‘Start/Stop’ button.
2. Scroll down to ‘Add’. 
3. Navigate down to ‘Other’ and then select ‘Other’ again.
4. Once selected, a keyboard should appear for you to enter the name of your activity profile.
5. After you confirm the name, simply place the activity profile in your list of favorites. 

Compatible Garmin watches

Most Garmin watches will allow you to add a custom profile type. Here are some of the devices we’ve tested this feature on:

• Enduro/2/3
• Epix and Epix Pro (Gen 2)
• Fenix 5 series
• Fenix 6 and 6 Pro series
• Fenix 7 and 7 Pro series
• Fenix 8 series
• Forerunner 255/265/570/955/965/970
• Instinct / Instinct 2 / Instinct 3 / Instinct Crossover
• MARQ and MARQ (Gen 2)
• Quatix 6 / Quatix 7
• Tactix 7 / Tactix Delta / Tactix 8