How to Export Data from Looker

Getting your data out of Looker is just as important as visualizing it within the platform. Whether you need to run a custom analysis in a spreadsheet, include a chart in a presentation, or feed Looker's data into another application, exporting is a fundamental task. This guide will walk you through exactly how to export data from dashboards, Looks, and Explores, along with best practices to save you time and headaches.

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Understanding Where and What You Can Export in Looker

Before diving into the steps, it's helpful to know the different places you can pull data from in Looker. Your export options will vary slightly depending on your starting point.

• Dashboards: Dashboards are collections of individual visualizations called "tiles." You typically export data from a single tile at a time, not the entire dashboard's raw data at once (though you can download the whole dashboard as a PDF or a collection of CSVs).
• Looks: A Look is a single saved report or visualization. It's a specific query you or your team has created and saved for reuse. Exporting from a Look gives you the data feeding that specific report.
• Explores: An Explore is the interactive environment where you build new queries from scratch by selecting dimensions and measures. You can run an ad-hoc report here and then immediately download the results without needing to save it as a Look first.

Each method serves a different purpose, from quickly grabbing the data behind a single chart to exporting the results of a brand-new analysis.

How to Export Data from a Looker Dashboard Tile

This is one of the most common tasks in Looker. You've found a tile on a dashboard with exactly the information you need, and you want to pull the underlying data.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

1. Navigate to your dashboard and find the specific tile you want to export data from.
2. Hover over the tile to reveal the three-dot menu icon (⋮) in the top-right corner. Quick Tip: If you don't see the menu, click on the tile once to make sure it's selected.
3. Click the three-dot menu and select Download data... from the dropdown list. This will open the download modal window.
4. Choose Your Format. This is the most important step. You'll see several options, each with a different use case.
5. Configure Advanced Options. After picking your format, you'll see more settings that give you fine-grained control over the export. Click on "Advanced options" if they are collapsed.

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Understanding the Advanced Download Options

Getting these settings right is the key to exporting precisely what you need.

Results:

• With visualization options applied: This tries to export the data as it appears in the chart. For example, if you've configured a pivot or renamed column headers in the visualization settings, it will apply those changes. However, it might not export the complete underlying data.
• As displayed in the data table: This exports the data exactly as seen in the tile's data table, honoring any pivots, row limits, or custom fields shown there. This is a very common choice.

Values:

• Formatted: The data will look like it does in Looker, with special formatting for things like currency (e.g., "$1,234.56"), percentages ("50%"), and large numbers with commas. This is great for presentation but may not be suitable for calculations as Excel might read "$1,234.56" as text.
• Unformatted: This is the raw data straight from the database (e.g., "1234.56" and "0.5"). Choose this option 99% of the time if you're going to use the data in another program like Excel, Python, or another BI tool.

Limit:

• Current results in table: Downloads only the rows currently visible on the dashboard tile (e.g., "first 500 rows").
• All Results: This is a powerful but tricky option. It attempts to download the entire dataset behind the query, ignoring any row limits on the tile. However, your Looker admin has likely set a hard limit for "All Results" downloads to protect system performance (e.g., 100,000 rows). So, "All Results" may not truly be all results if your query returns more rows than the admin limit.
• Custom: Allows you to specify an exact number of rows to download, up to the maximum limit set by your admin.

Once you've configured your options, click the Download button, and the file will be saved to your computer.

How to Export Data from a Look

Exporting from a Look is even more straightforward because a Look is already a complete, self-contained report.

1. Open the Look you want to export. You can find it in your personal folder or shared folders.
2. Click the gear icon (⚙️) in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Select Download from the dropdown menu.
4. Choose your preferred format, value type, and limit, then click Download. The same modal as in the dashboard section will appear, allowing you to customize your export.

How to Export Data from an Explore

The Explore page is your data playground. This is where you go to ask new questions of your data. Exporting here allows you to grab the results of ad-hoc analyses on the fly.

1. Go to an Explore by selecting one from the main navigation or by clicking "Explore from here" on a dashboard tile or Look.
2. Build your query. In the left-hand panel, select the dimensions (blue columns) and measures (orange columns) you need for your analysis. Add any filters you require in the "Filters" section.
3. Click the "Run" button in the top right. Looker will execute the query and display the results in a data table and/or visualization below.
4. Just like with a Look, click the gear icon (⚙️) in the top menu bar, next to the "Run" button.
5. Select Download.
6. From here, the process is identical. Choose your format (CSV, Excel, etc.), configure the advanced options for values and limits, and hit Download.

Troubleshooting Common Export Issues

Sometimes things don't go as planned. Here are a few common issues and how to fix them.

The "Download" Option is Greyed Out or Missing

If you can't see or click the download option, it’s almost always a permissions issue. Your Looker administrator controls who can download data. To protect sensitive information, they may have disabled exporting for your user role. You'll need to reach out to them and request the appropriate permissions (specifically, download_with_limit or download_without_limit).

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My Exported CSV is Missing Rows

This is the classic "All Results" limit problem. If you export a query that returns 200,000 rows but your admin has set a download limit of 100,000, your file will be silently truncated after the 100,000th row. There is no simple fix for this from the user's end. One workaround is to apply filters in the Explore to break up your query into smaller chunks that fall under the limit (e.g., export data for January, then February, etc.). The best solution is to talk to your data team about whether the limit can be raised or if there's a better way to access large datasets.

My Numbers are Being Treated as Text in Excel

This happens when you download with Formatted values instead of Unformatted. Re-export your data, but this time be sure to select "Unformatted" under the advanced options. This will give you raw numerical values (like 42.5 instead of 42.50%) that spreadsheet programs can easily work with.

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Scheduling Exports Instead of Manually Downloading

If you find yourself downloading the same report every Monday morning, you're doing extra work. Looker's "Scheduler" (also called "delivering" or "sending") lets you automate this process. From any Look or dashboard, click the gear icon (for Looks) or the three-dot menu (for dashboards) and choose Schedule delivery.

You can configure it to automatically email the data as a CSV or Excel attachment to you and your team on a recurring basis (e.g., daily, weekly, or monthly). This is a huge time-saver for regular reporting.

Final Thoughts

Looker provides a robust set of options for getting data out of the platform, whether you're working from a dashboard, a saved Look, or a custom Explore. The key is to choose the right format for your needs and pay close attention to the advanced options for values and row limits to ensure you get exactly the data you expect.

The need to constantly export data from one system just to move it into another often points to a larger friction in your reporting workflow. We built Graphed to remove this manual step by connecting directly to your sources like Google Analytics, Salesforce, and ads platforms. Instead of pulling CSVs, you simply ask for a specific chart or dashboard in plain English, and our tool builds a live, interactive visualization for you, saving you from the all-too-familiar download-and-reformat routine.