Don’t Lose the Juice: How to Export and Transfer Your Lowrance Waypoints

We’ve all been there. You just spent three seasons finding the perfect brush piles and offshore rock veins, and now you’re staring at a new unit—or worse, a blank screen—wondering if all that data is gone.

At BFE, we get a ton of questions about moving waypoints. The good news? It’s easier than ever, provided you know one specific trick.

Step 1: The Right Card for the Job

Before you even touch the unit, grab an SD card. Here is the kicker: it needs to be 32GB or smaller. A lot of guys try to use those massive 128GB cards they use for their GoPros, but most fish finders won't recognize them for data transfers. An 8GB or 16GB card is plenty—waypoint files are tiny.

Step 2: Navigating the Lowrance Menu

1. Insert your card into the slot.

2. Hit your Pages button and scroll down to Storage.

3. Check to make sure the unit "sees" your card (it’ll show up as Memory Card Top or Bottom).

4. Select Waypoints and then hit Export.

Step 3: Choosing Your Format (The Critical Part)

This is where most people trip up.

• Staying with Lowrance? You can use "User Data File Version 6." It’s native and works great.

• Moving to Garmin or Humminbird? You must select GPX (GPS Exchange). This is the universal language of GPS. If you export in GPX, you can take those spots to almost any brand on the market.

Step 4: Name, Export, and Verify

Give your file a name you’ll remember—something like "LakeEstes_2026"—and hit enter. Once the progress bar finishes, go back into your storage menu and look at the files on the SD card. If you see your filename with a .gpx extension, you’re golden.

Final Pro Tip

Always keep a backup of your waypoints on a card in your truck or at home. Electronics are great until they aren’t, and your time on the water is too valuable to spend re-finding every stump in the lake.