How to See Your GPA on Canvas (Even When It's Hidden)

Updated for the current Canvas LMS gradebook

Canvas doesn't have a page that shows your GPA. It shows grades per course, per assignment, per assignment group, but there's no single screen anywhere in Canvas that adds it all up into a cumulative or semester GPA. On top of that, some of your courses might not show a grade total at all, even as a percentage. Here's why both of those things happen, and what to actually do about it.

Why Canvas doesn't show a running GPA

Canvas is built as a gradebook, not a transcript system. It tracks scores within a single course: assignments, quizzes, discussions, grouped and weighted however the instructor sets it up. It was never designed to calculate a GPA across multiple courses, because that calculation depends on things Canvas doesn't fully know: your school's specific GPA scale, credit hours per course, and whether a class counts toward your major GPA, your overall GPA, or neither. That math lives with your registrar, not your LMS.

Why some courses hide the total grade entirely

This part surprises people. In Canvas's course settings, instructors have a checkbox literally called "Hide totals in student grades summary." When it's turned on, the total grade column, and any assignment group subtotals, disappear from your grade summary page for that course. This is a documented, official Canvas feature, not a bug or a glitch on your end.

Professors usually turn this on for a specific reason: to stop students from fixating on a misleading number mid-semester, before every assignment has been graded and weighted in. An early "total" that's only based on two quizzes out of fifteen assignments can look a lot better or worse than where you'll actually land, so some instructors hide it until grading is further along or complete.

Whatever the reason, the effect is the same: you're stuck without a number, even though Canvas already has every score it needs to calculate one.

How to calculate it yourself

If a course hides the total, you can still work it out by hand, as long as you know how the course is weighted. Most syllabi list this, something like "Homework 20%, Quizzes 25%, Midterm 25%, Final 30%."

Find your average score in each assignment group (add up your points earned, divide by points possible, for just that group).
Multiply each group's average by its weight.
Add those weighted numbers together.

Example: Homework average 92% (worth 20%), Quizzes average 85% (worth 25%), Midterm 78% (worth 25%), Final not graded yet.

(0.92 × 0.20) + (0.85 × 0.25) + (0.78 × 0.25) = 0.184 + 0.2125 + 0.195 = 59.15% of the graded weight so far. Since the final's weight (30%) isn't in yet, this isn't your real projected grade, just what's been graded to date.

This works, but it's tedious to redo by hand every time a new grade posts, and it gets worse the more courses you're tracking at once.

The easier way

GPA Plus is a free Chrome extension that does this calculation automatically, using the exact same assignment scores your professor already entered in Canvas. It reads the raw data and computes the real percentage and GPA, including in courses where the instructor has hidden the total. There's no account, no signup, and nothing about your grades is sent anywhere; it runs entirely in your own browser.

See how it works

Turning a percentage into a GPA

Once you have a real percentage for a course, converting it to a GPA point value depends on your school's official scale. Most U.S. schools use a version of the standard 4.0 scale (A = 4.0, A- = 3.7, B+ = 3.3, and so on), but the exact cutoffs vary by institution. Your registrar's academic catalog will have the precise scale that officially counts, so use that for anything that matters for scholarships, academic standing, or transcripts. Treat any tool's GPA estimate, including this one, as a working estimate rather than your official record.

The short version

Canvas doesn't calculate GPA because that math belongs to your registrar, not your LMS. Some courses hide their total on purpose, usually to avoid showing a misleading number too early. You can always calculate it by hand from the assignment weights in your syllabus, or let something read the same data automatically.