How to Delete Credentials in Power BI

Managing data source credentials in Power BI is a task you'll face sooner or later, whether you're fixing a failed refresh, updating a password, or switching environments. This article will guide you through the exact steps to delete old credentials in Power BI Desktop and update them in the Power BI Service, so you can keep your data flowing smoothly.

Graphed

Build AI Agents for Marketing

Build virtual employees that run your go to market. Connect your data sources, deploy autonomous agents, and grow your company.

Build Your First Agent

Why You Need to Delete or Update Credentials

Forgetting to update your saved credentials is the most common reason for failed report refreshes. But it's not the only reason. Here are a few common scenarios where you'll need to manage your Power BI data source credentials:

• Password Updates: Your organization has a policy that requires you to change your passwords every 90 days. When you update your password for a data source (like a SQL database or SharePoint), you must also update it in Power BI or your reports will stop refreshing.
• Permission Changes: If a team member's access rights to a specific data source are changed or revoked, their old credentials need to be cleared to prevent unauthorized access or refresh failures.
• Troubleshooting Failed Refreshes: Seeing an error message like "The credentials provided for the source are invalid"? This is Power BI's way of telling you it can't log in to your data source. Clearing and re-entering the credentials is often the quickest fix.
• Switching Environments: You might build a report using credentials for a testing or development database. When you're ready to move to production, you need to clear the old test credentials and enter the new ones for the live database.
• Removing Unused Sources: If you've stopped using a data source, it's good security practice to remove its saved credentials from your global permissions list.

Power BI Desktop vs. Power BI Service: A Quick Primer

Before diving into the steps, it’s important to understand where Power BI stores your credentials. The process is different depending on whether you're working locally on your computer or in the cloud.

• Power BI Desktop: This is the application on your computer where you build your reports. When you connect to a data source, Desktop caches your credentials locally. You can clear these permissions globally for all your .pbix files.
• Power BI Service: This is the cloud-based service (app.powerbi.com) where you publish, share, and manage your reports and dashboards. When you publish a report, the dataset's credentials are managed separately in the cloud to allow for scheduled refreshes. Here, you "edit" credentials rather than "deleting" them.

Now, let's get into the step-by-step process for each.

How to Delete Credentials in Power BI Desktop

If you've saved credentials in Power BI Desktop and need to clear them, you’ll manage this through the "Data source settings" menu. This method completely removes the saved login information, forcing Power BI to ask you for new credentials the next time you connect.

AI Agents for Marketing

Crash Course

Graphed

Free PDF · the crash course

AI Agents for Marketing Crash Course

Learn how to deploy AI marketing agents across your go-to-market — the best tools, prompts, and workflows to turn your data into autonomous execution without writing code.

Download the PDF

Step 1: Open Data Source Settings

First, open any Power BI Report file (.pbix file) in Power BI Desktop. In the top ribbon, click on File > Options and settings > Data Source Settings.

Step 2: Go To Global Permissions

A dialog box will appear. By default, it shows "Data sources in current file." This list only shows the credentials for the specific report you have open. For most use cases, you'll want to clear the credentials everywhere, not just for one file.

Click on Global permissions on the left. This presents a list of all data sources you have ever connected to from your Power BI Desktop application, regardless of the report.

Step 3: Select and Clear Permissions

Scroll through the list to find the data source for which you want to remove the credentials. Click on it to select it.

Once selected, click the Clear Permissions button at the bottom of the window. Power BI will show a warning dialogue to make sure if you want to go through with deleting the credentials. Click Delete to confirm.

Once you click "Delete," the credential is gone for good. The next time you try to refresh data from that source or open a report that uses it, Power BI will prompt you to provide new credentials.

Graphed

Build AI Agents for Marketing

Build virtual employees that run your go to market. Connect your data sources, deploy autonomous agents, and grow your company.

Build Your First Agent

How to Update Credentials in Power BI Service

Fixing credential issues in the Power BI Service is crucial for automated scheduled refreshes. If the credentials stored in the service are outdated, your dashboards and reports will stop updating. Here, the process involves editing existing credentials rather than deleting them outright.

Step 1: Navigate to the Dataset Settings

First, log in to your Power BI account at app.powerbi.com. From the left navigation pane, find the Workspace that contains the dataset you need to update.

Find your dataset in the list (look for the orange icon, not the blue report icon). Click the three-dot menu (...) next to the dataset name and select Settings.

Step 2: Find Data Source Credentials

On the dataset settings page, scroll down and expand the Data source credentials section. If there's an issue with a connection, you'll often see a small warning icon and a message indicating that the credentials are not valid.

Click the Edit credentials link next to the data source that needs updating.

Step 3: Re-enter Your Credentials

A dialog box will pop up, asking you to configure the connection. The options here will vary depending on the data source. For example, a SQL server might ask for a username and password, while another source might use OAuth2 authentication, which redirects you to a login page (like Google or Microsoft).

• Authentication method: Select the right way to verify yourself to that source (Basic authentication is your typical manually typed-in credentials like user id and password, but this can vary depending on the source).
• Enter Credentials: Carefully re-enter your updated user id and password for that service so it can authenticate your new access permissions.
• Privacy Level Setting for this data source: You can typically pick an "Organizational" privacy setting, as that lets your data share securely across other datasets in your company's Microsoft Tenancy, and avoid an error during publishing.

After filling in the details, click Sign in. Once successfully connected, you'll see a green checkmark confirming that the source is ready to go.

AI Agents for Marketing

Crash Course

Graphed

Free PDF · the crash course

AI Agents for Marketing Crash Course

Learn how to deploy AI marketing agents across your go-to-market — the best tools, prompts, and workflows to turn your data into autonomous execution without writing code.

Download the PDF

Troubleshooting Common Credential Errors

Even after following the steps, you might run into some hurdles. Here are some quick fixes for common issues:

• "Unable to connect" Error in Power BI Service: This almost always means the saved password has expired or changed. Just follow the steps above to edit the credentials with your latest password for that source.
• Greyed-out 'Clear Permissions' button in Desktop: This happens when you try to change permissions to a native Power Query source that's built-in, but there's a super easy fix:

This approach removes the stored details more forcefully and works well when the ‘Clear Permissions' button isn't available.

Final Thoughts

Managing your data source credentials in Power BI is a fundamental skill for keeping your reports accurate, secure, and up to date. Whether you’re clearing old data from Desktop or updating an expired password in the Service, knowing your way around the data source settings will save you a ton of time and prevent unnecessary failed refreshes.

For teams tired of manual platform-hopping and troubleshooting refresh errors, we designed Graphed to simplify this entire process. Instead of managing credentials and refreshes across dozens of tools, you can connect your data sources to Graphed with one click. We then keep the data synced in real-time and provide one central location to create and view all your dashboards, so you can stop wrestling with configurations and focus on the insights.