How to Remove Filter from Slicer in Power BI
Power BI slicers are fantastic for letting users interactively filter reports, but knowing how to easily clear those filters is just as important for a great user experience. Whether you’re a report creator looking to add a "reset" function or a user who just wants to see the full picture again, we've got you covered. This guide will walk you through the simple and effective ways to remove a filter from a slicer in Power BI.
A Quick Refresher: What Is a Slicer in Power BI?
Before we jump into removing filters, let’s quickly recap what a slicer is. In Power BI, a slicer is a type of on-canvas visual filter. Instead of forcing users to open up the Filters pane, slicers provide visible, clickable options right on the report page, making it intuitive for anyone to explore the data.
You can create slicers for nearly any type of data in your model. Common examples include:
Category Slicers: Often displayed as a list or dropdown menu for filtering by text values like "Product Category," "Region," or "Sales Rep."
Date Slicers: An interactive calendar or slider for filtering by a specific date or a time period, such as "Last Quarter" or "This Month."
Numeric Range Slicers: A slider that allows users to filter based on a numerical range, like filtering for sales between $500 and $2,500.
Their main job is to make reports dynamic. A user can click a region in one slicer and a date range in another to see how those combined selections affect all the other charts and tables on the page. But what happens when they’re done and want to go back to the original, unfiltered view?
Why It's Important to Clear Slicer Filters
Providing an obvious way to remove slicer filters is a key part of building user-friendly reports. There are a few very practical reasons for this:
Resetting the View: The most common reason. Users drill down to find a specific insight and then want to "zoom out" to see the original, complete dataset without having to manually uncheck dozens of boxes.
Preventing Misinterpretation: If a user opens a saved report that already has filters applied, they might not realize it. A clearly visible filter state and an easy way to clear it ensure that they don't draw incorrect conclusions based on a partial view of the data.
Improving User Experience (UX): A simple "Clear All" or "Reset Filters" button makes a report feel more polished and accessible, especially for less technical stakeholders who might be intimidated by multiple filter UIs. It replaces confusion with control.
Authoring and Troubleshooting: As a report creator, you frequently need to check your base measures and calculations without any filters interfering. Quickly clearing all slicers is much more efficient than deselecting items one by one.
Method 1: The Built-in "Clear Selections" Icon (For a Single Slicer)
Power BI includes a convenient, built-in feature to clear a specific slicer. It’s marked by a small eraser icon that appears in the slicer’s header. For some reason, this is sometimes hidden by default, but it's simple to enable.
How to Enable and Use the "Clear Selections" Icon
If you're building a report, here’s how to make sure the clear option is visible on your slicers.
Step 1: Select Your SlicerFirst, click on the slicer visual you want to modify to select it.
Step 2: Go to the Format Visual PaneWith the slicer selected, navigate to the Format visual pane (the paintbrush icon) on the right-hand side of the Power BI Desktop window.
Step 3: Enable the HeaderExpand the General section and find the Header options. The "Clear selections" icon lives inside the header. Toggle the header On if it’s currently off. You should see the eraser icon appear at the top-right corner of your slicer.If the header is already on but the icon is missing, expand the Icons subsection within the Header options and ensure its color doesn't blend in with the background.
That's all it takes from the developer side. Now, any user viewing the report can easily clear that specific slicer.
How to Use It as a Report Viewer
Once enabled, using it is simple. After you've made one or more selections in a slicer, simply hover over the slicer's header area and click the eraser icon labeled "Clear selections."The slicer will immediately return to its default state, and the filter will be removed, updating all related visuals on the report page. Note that this action only affects the one slicer you clicked — other slicers will keep their current selections.
Method 2: Create a Universal "Clear All Filters" Button with Bookmarks
Clearing slicers one-by-one is fine, but what if you have multiple slicers on a page? A dedicated "Clear All Filters" button can reset the entire page with a single click, providing a much cleaner user experience.
This method involves using Power BI’s Bookmark feature to "save" the unfiltered state of your report page and then linking a button to that state.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Reset Button
Follow these steps to build your own universal reset button.
Step 1: Get Your Report into its Default StateGo to your report page and manually clear all the slicers. Make sure no filters are applied and all visuals are displaying the full, unfiltered dataset. This is the "state" you want to save.
Step 2: Open the Bookmarks PaneIn the top ribbon, click the View tab. In the "Show panes" section, check the box for Bookmarks. This will open the Bookmarks pane on the right side.
Step 3: Create the "Reset" BookmarkWith all your slicers cleared, click the Add button in the Bookmarks pane. A new bookmark will appear with a generic name like "Bookmark 1." This bookmark has now captured the current, unfiltered state of your report page.
Step 4: Rename and Configure the BookmarkDouble-click the new bookmark to rename it to something descriptive, like “All Filters Cleared”.Next, click the three dots (...) next to your bookmark’s name to see its options. For clearing filters, the most important property is “Data,” which must remain checked. The "Data" property saves the current filter and slicer states. For a simple reset button, you can leave all the other options checked by default. We'll return to this for advanced configurations later.
Step 5: Insert a ButtonNow, go to the Insert tab in the top ribbon. Click on Buttons, and choose a style that you like. A Blank button offers the most flexibility for customization.
Step 6: Format and Position the ButtonDrag the new button to a prominent position on your report page, like the top corner. With the button selected, go to the Format pane.
Under the Style section, turn on Text and type in a label like “Clear All Filters” or “Reset Page”.
Customize the font, colors, and border to match your report’s design.
Step 7: Link the Button to Your BookmarkThis is the final step where you make the button functional. With the button still selected:
In the Format pane, toggle the Action setting to On.
Expand the Action menu. For Type, select Bookmark.
For Bookmark, select the “All Filters Cleared” bookmark you created earlier from the dropdown menu.
Step 8: Test Your ButtonMake several selections across your different slicers. To test the button in Power BI Desktop, hold down the Ctrl key and click your "Clear All Filters" button. All the slicers should instantly reset. (In the published Power BI Service, a single click is all that's needed — no Ctrl key required).
Troubleshooting Common Issues
If you run into trouble, here are fixes for the most common issues:
Why is the "Clear selections" (eraser) icon missing from my slicer?This almost always means the slicer header is turned off. Select the slicer, go to Format visual > General > Header, and toggle it on.
Why isn't my "Clear All Filters" button working?There are two primary causes:
The bookmark was created with filters applied. The bookmark saves the state it was in when created. If you forgot to clear the slicers first, the button will just re-apply those filters. The fix is easy: clear all your slicers manually, then in the Bookmarks pane, click the three dots (...) next to your bookmark and select Update.
The button "Action" is misconfigured. Double-check that the Action toggle is On, the type is set to "Bookmark," and the correct bookmark is selected.
My reset button also resets my chart cross-filtering. How do I stop that?By default, bookmark actions apply to all visuals on the page. If a user has clicked on a bar in a chart to cross-filter other visuals, a default reset button will clear that interaction, too. Sometimes that’s desirable, but if you want the button to only affect the slicers, you can change the bookmark’s behavior:
Select only your slicer visuals (use Ctrl+Click to select multiples).
Go to the Bookmarks pane, click the three dots (...) next to your "All Filters Cleared" bookmark, and toggle its setting from "All visuals" to “Selected visuals.”
Click Update again to save this new scope. Now the button will only reset the visuals you explicitly selected (your slicers).
Final Thoughts
Knowing how to effectively manage slicer filters marks the difference between a functional report and a truly user-friendly one. Whether you use the simple, built-in "Clear selections" icon for individual slicers or create a universal reset button with bookmarks, these techniques empower your colleagues and clients to explore data confidently without getting lost.
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