How to Get Data Off a Garmin Xero

The Xero records every shot and holds your last 50 sessions. Getting that off the unit is easy once you know it mounts like a thumb drive — here are the three routes and what each one actually gives you.

The short answer

1. Over the USB cable (everything at once)

The Xero mounts as a standard USB mass-storage device — no drivers, no Garmin software required.

1. Plug the Xero into your computer with the USB-C cable that came with it.
2. It appears as a removable drive — a mounted volume on macOS, or a drive letter on Windows.
3. Open Garmin/Shot_Sessions. Every session is one .FIT file, named by date and time.
4. Copy the whole folder, or just the files from the range day you care about.

Nothing has to be deleted off the unit to do this, and copying files does not disturb what the Xero has stored.

What is a .FIT file?

FIT is Garmin's own binary format — the same one their watches and bike computers write. It is not a spreadsheet, so double-clicking one won't show you numbers. You need software that reads FIT to see your velocities. That's the trade: the USB route gives you everything, but the files need a reader.

2. Through the ShotView app (one session at a time)

If the cable is at home, or you want the data on the drive back from the range, ShotView on your phone will do it:

1. Open ShotView on your phone and let it sync with the Xero.
2. Open the session you want.
3. Share/export it as a CSV — a plain spreadsheet of per-shot velocities plus average, SD and extreme spread. Some versions will export several sessions together as an .xlsx.
4. Email or AirDrop it to your computer.

The upside is that a CSV opens anywhere. The downside is that it's one session per export, which gets tedious across a ladder of eight or ten charges.

3. Straight into Loadscope (skip the file wrangling)

Loadscope reads both. Plug the Xero in and it notices the device, tells you how many sessions are on it, and offers to read them — no copying folders, no converting .FIT to anything.

Because the unit holds up to 50 sessions — often several range days — it asks which sessions belong to this ladder. They're listed by time, shot count, average speed and SD, grouped by range day, with the likely block already selected. Nothing is written to or erased on the chronograph.

And the cable is optional. A ShotView CSV imports exactly the same way, and scores identically. Use whichever you have on you.

Common snags

• It charges, but doesn't show up as a drive. Try the cable that came with it. Charge-only USB cables have no data pins, so the unit powers up and nothing ever mounts — a known failure across Garmin devices, and Garmin recommends the original cable for data transfer.
• Dry the port first. Garmin's manual says to thoroughly dry the USB port, the weather cap and the area around it before connecting to a computer, to prevent corrosion. Worth remembering if you shot in the rain.
• You see a Garmin folder but no Shot_Sessions. That folder only appears once the unit has recorded at least one session.
• The .FIT file won't open. Expected — it's binary, not a spreadsheet. It needs software that reads FIT.
• You have far more sessions than you expected. Also expected. The Xero stores up to 50 sessions (100 shots each) and does not clear itself, so a unit in regular use is usually holding several range days at once — which is exactly why picking the right ones matters. Once it is full the chronograph asks you to delete a session before it will record a new one, so it never silently discards a string you shot.