How to Export a Table from Power BI to Excel

Moving your data from a Power BI report into an Excel spreadsheet is a common, everyday task. While Power BI is fantastic for interactive visualization, sometimes you need the familiar flexibility of Excel for some quick, off-the-cuff analysis, to share numbers with a colleague who isn't on Power BI, or just to create a static snapshot of your key metrics. This guide will walk you through several easy methods for exporting any table or visual from Power BI to Excel, so you can pick the best option for your specific need.

Why Export Data from Power BI to Excel?

Before diving into the "how," it's helpful to understand the "why." Different scenarios call for different export methods. Most people export data for one of these reasons:

• Ad-Hoc Analysis: You're comfortable in Excel and want to quickly play with the numbers, create a pivot table, or use formulas that aren't readily available in your Power BI model.
• Sharing with Others: Your boss or a colleague might not have a Power BI license or access to your workspace. Exporting the data to a simple Excel file is the easiest way to share the core insights with them.
• Creating Static Reports: For weekly email updates, PowerPoint presentations, or formal documentation, a static table exported from Power BI is often exactly what you need. It captures the data at a specific point in time.
• Data Archiving: You might want to save a snapshot of month-end or quarter-end data for historical records without relying on the live, constantly refreshing Power BI report.

Understanding your goal will help you choose the most efficient method below.

Method 1: Exporting Summarized Data (What You See is What You Get)

This is the fastest and most common way to export data from a single visualization. "Summarized data" means you will get an Excel file containing exactly what the visual is showing - the aggregated numbers with all the current filters and slicers applied.

When to use this method: It’s perfect when the summary table from your Power BI report is exactly what you need to paste into a presentation or send in an email update. For example, if you have a table showing total sales per region for the last quarter, this method will give you just that - a clean, simple table with regions and their total sales.

How to Export Summarized Data:

1. Locate Your Visual: Navigate to the table, matrix, or chart in your Power BI report that you want to export.
2. Find the 'More options' Icon: Hover over the visual to make its headers and icons appear. In the top-right corner, you'll see an ellipsis (…). Click it to open the options menu.
3. Select 'Export data': A dialog box will pop up, giving you a few choices.
4. Choose Your Format:
5. Click 'Export': Power BI will generate the Excel file and your browser will begin to download it. When you open the file, you'll see a perfectly formatted table that mirrors the visual from your report.

This method is quick, clean, and gives you a presentation-ready table in seconds.

Method 2: Exporting Underlying Data (For a Deeper Dive)

"Underlying data" refers to the more detailed, row-level data from your source that is being used to create the summarized visual. This method also respects any filters applied to the report, but instead of giving you the final aggregation, it gives you the detailed rows that contribute to it.

When to use this method: Use this option when you want to perform your own analysis in Excel. For example, if your visual shows total sales per category, exporting the underlying data would give you a list of all the individual sales transactions that make up those totals. This allows you to create your own pivot tables, run VLOOKUPs, or add custom calculation columns in Excel.

Important Limitations to Know:

Before you begin, be aware of the export limits. Power BI puts a cap on how many rows you can export at once to ensure performance doesn't suffer.

• Power BI Desktop: You can export a maximum of 30,000 rows to a .csv file.
• Power BI Service (Online): You can export a maximum of 150,000 rows to an .xlsx file.

If you need more data than this, you'll need to apply more filters in Power BI to export it in smaller chunks or use an advanced method like DAX Studio (covered later).

How to Export Underlying Data:

1. Navigate to the Visual: Just like before, hover over the table or chart you're interested in.
2. Open 'More options' (...): Click the ellipsis icon in the top-right corner.
3. Select 'Export data': The familiar pop-up will appear.
4. Choose your settings:
5. Click 'Export': Your browser will download the file. The resulting spreadsheet will contain many more rows than the summarized export, giving you the raw material for your own analysis.

Method 3: Simply Copy a Table to Your Clipboard

Sometimes you don't even need to create a new file. You might just want to quickly grab a small table and paste it directly into an email, a Teams chat, or another Excel sheet you already have open. This is the fastest way to do it.

When to use this method: This is best suited for small tables where simple, unformatted data is all you need. The formatting won't be as clean as a proper export, but it’s unbeatable for speed.

How to Copy a Table:

1. Select the Visual: Click on the table or matrix in your Power BI report to make sure it's active.
2. Open the 'More options' Menu: Click the ellipsis icon (...) on the visual.
3. Find the Copy Option: Look for an option called 'Copy table'. If you don't see it, it might be nested under 'More options'.
4. Paste into Excel: Switch over to Excel and simply press Ctrl+V (or right-click and Paste). The data from your table will appear in the spreadsheet.

It's that simple. There are no files to download or manage, making this a go-to trick for quick data sharing.

Bonus Method: Using DAX Studio for Very Large Exports

For more advanced users who need to bypass the export limits, DAX Studio is a powerful free tool. It connects directly to your Power BI data model and lets you query and export entire tables containing millions of rows.

When to use this method: When the standard 30,000 or 150,000 row limits aren't enough and you need a complete dump of a table for offline backup or analysis in a different system.

This isn't a beginner method, but if you're comfortable with data tools, the process is straightforward:

1. Download and install DAX Studio.
2. Open your Power BI (.pbix) file.
3. Launch DAX Studio. It will automatically detect and allow you to connect to your open Power BI model.
4. In the Query pane, write a simple DAX query to return your table, like:
5. Run the query and then go to the 'Output' tab in the main ribbon. You can select 'File' and choose to save the output as a CSV or a Tab-Delimited file, handling massive datasets with ease.

Troubleshooting Common Export Issues

Sometimes you might run into a snag. Here are the most common problems and how to solve them.

The "Export data" option is grayed out.

This is almost always a permissions issue. The designer of the Power BI report or your organization's Power BI administrator has likely disabled the export feature for this specific report or for all reports in your company. If you need to export, you'll have to reach out to the report owner or your IT department and request they enable it in the report settings or the Admin Portal.

I'm hitting the row limits and getting an error.

This is expected if your underlying data is larger than the 30k/150k limits. Your best course of action is to apply more specific filters to your report in Power BI. For example, instead of exporting all sales data for the year, filter for a specific quarter or month. This will reduce the number of rows below the limit, allowing you to export segment by segment. If you absolutely need all the data at once, the DAX Studio method is your best bet.

My dates and numbers look wrong in Excel.

Occasionally, data types might not translate perfectly. A date in Power BI might appear as a generic number or text string in Excel. This is usually easy to fix. Just select the column in Excel, go to the 'Home' tab, and use the 'Number' format dropdown to reformat the column as a 'Short Date' or 'Number'.

Final Thoughts

Getting your data out of Power BI and into Excel is a matter of choosing the right tool for the job. For a quick, formatted summary, use the 'Summarized data' export. To get the raw materials for your own analysis, choose 'Underlying data'. And for maximum speed with small tables, a quick copy and paste is often all you need.

Manually exporting reports and moving data between different tools can start to feel repetitive, especially when Power BI is just one of many platforms you use. At Graphed, we help solve this by connecting all of your sales and marketing data sources - from Google Analytics and Shopify to your CRM - into one place. You can build real-time, cross-platform dashboards in seconds using simple, natural language, without ever needing to worry about manual downloads again.