A Health Auto Export alternative

Health Auto Export is the app our comparison table is built against. It covers a wide range of Apple Health data types and can push that data to the cloud on its own. If your only device is an iPhone, it does things Health to Mac cannot. This page is an honest look at where the two apps differ, with links to the sources behind every comparison claim.

Where Health Auto Export does well

The clearest win is automatic cloud and email exports that run from the iPhone alone. With a Premium plan it can send CSV and JSON to Dropbox, Google Drive, email, a REST endpoint, MQTT or Home Assistant with no Mac involved. Their automations docs describe those scheduled exports, and the App Store listing covers the data types it reads. For someone who wants to set it up on the phone and forget it, that is a genuinely good fit.

Health Auto Export also has a Mac app with dashboards and an MCP server for AI, though both sit behind Premium (pricing, MCP announcement). It is a polished, established product, and pretending otherwise would make the rest of this page worthless.

Where Health to Mac takes a different approach

It works from the Mac, with the iPhone app closed. Health to Mac keeps your history in one local SQLite database on the Mac. Exports and AI access read that database, so they keep running while your iPhone is asleep or the companion app is shut. Health Auto Export's automations and MCP run while its iPhone app is open (automations docs, MCP announcement).
One price, once. The signed, notarized Mac app costs $10 once (an early-bird price; $15 later), plus tax where applicable, with every feature included and free updates for life. The iPhone app is free and its exports are free. When we checked Health Auto Export's pricing on 3 November 2026, its Premium features were a subscription or one-off purchase; see their page for today's figures.
Open source. Health to Mac is MIT-licensed and you can build the Mac app yourself for free. The repository goes public at launch, and until then the site's GitHub links are held. Our comparison marks open source as ours, not Health Auto Export's — you can check their GitHub yourself.

Other differences, row by row

For getting data onto a Mac, Health Auto Export uses files in iCloud Drive; Health to Mac syncs over your own Wi-Fi or Tailscale with no iCloud account (Sync to Mac docs). We keep records in a single database on the Mac rather than a folder of files. Our Mac app adds pages for strength training, muscle fatigue, running best efforts and race estimates that HAE's site does not advertise (healthyapps.dev). Both read ECG, State of Mind and medications (supported data), and neither app has an account or tracking in the app itself (App Store listing).

What we do not do

We cannot send cloud or email exports with no Mac. That row belongs to Health Auto Export, and we mark it as theirs on the comparison table. On Health to Mac, the free iPhone app saves JSON or CSV to Files and can POST new data to a REST API you own after every sync; email, cloud folders, MQTT and Home Assistant exports run from the Mac app. If you need those destinations from a phone-only setup, Health Auto Export is the better choice today. If you want one local database on a Mac you own, a one-time price, and code you can read, that is what we built.

Sources for this comparison

Every claim above was checked against these published pages. Prices and automations were last verified on 3 November 2026.