How to Export Power BI Report to Excel (Step-by-Step)

If you’ve ever built a beautiful Power BI report and then had a colleague say, “Can you just send me the data in Excel?” — you know the feeling. You built all those visuals, and now someone wants a flat file. Microsoft provides multiple ways to get your Power BI data into Excel.

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through every method — from the simplest one-click export in Power BI Desktop to the more advanced “Analyze in Excel” feature in Power BI Service. By the end, you’ll know exactly know how to export Power BI report to Excel.

Why Export Power BI Data to Excel?

Before we get into the steps, let me quickly explain why you’d even want to do this. Power BI is excellent for visuals and interactive dashboards, but Excel still wins when it comes to sharing data with people who don’t have Power BI access, doing ad-hoc analysis, creating custom pivot tables, or just sending a clean spreadsheet to your manager.

Here are some common scenarios:

• A stakeholder needs the raw numbers behind a chart
• You want to do further filtering or manipulation that’s easier in Excel
• Your team doesn’t have Power BI licenses but needs the data
• You need a snapshot of the data at a specific point in time

The screenshot below depicts the Power BI data after it has been exported to Excel.

Check out Power BI FREE vs PRO vs PREMIUM: Which License Do You Actually Need?

Method 1: Enable Export Options in Power BI Desktop (Do This First)

Before you can export anything from a Power BI Desktop report, you need to make sure the export option is switched on. This is a one-time setup step and it takes about 30 seconds.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click the File tab at the top left.
2. Go to Options and settings → click Options.

3. Under the CURRENT FILE section on the left, click Report settings.
4. You’ll see an Export data section. Select the option: Allow end-users to export summarized data from the Power BI service or Power BI Report Server.
5. Click OK. Here is a screenshot for your reference.

If you want your users to also export underlying (raw) data, choose the third option instead: Allow end users to export data with current layout, summarized data, and underlying data from the service or Report Server.

This setting controls what your report consumers can export once you publish the report. If you skip this step and someone tries to export underlying data from the service, they’ll hit an error that says “The report author turned off this option.” That’s the fix.

Method 2: Export a Visual from Power BI Desktop

This is the most common method and works great when you want to export the data behind a specific chart or table.

I’ll use two examples here — a pie chart and a table visual — both of which are common in everyday Power BI reports.

Example 1 — Exporting a Pie Chart

Let’s say you have a sales report in Power BI Desktop with a pie chart breaking down revenue by region. Here’s how to export it:

1. Open your Power BI report in Power BI Desktop.
2. Click on the pie chart visual you want to export.
3. You’ll see three dots (…) at the top-right corner of the visual. Click them.
4. Select Export data from the dropdown.

5. A Save dialog box will appear. Choose your folder location, set the file type to CSV, and click Save.

6. Open the downloaded file in Excel — you’ll see all the data that was powering that pie chart. You can see the screenshot below for your reference.

That’s it. Three clicks and you have an Excel-ready file.

Example 2 — Exporting a Table Visual

Same idea, but with a Power BI table visual:

1. Click on your table visual in Power BI Desktop.
2. Click the three dots (…) at the top-right corner.
3. Select Export data.

1. Choose a location, pick CSV as the file format, and click Save.
2. Open the file in Excel — the table data will look exactly the same as it does in Power BI. You can see the exact output in the screenshot below:

One thing to note: the exported CSV will contain the data as it appears in the visual, so any filters or slicers applied to your report at the time of export will affect what shows up in the file. Keep that in mind if you’re getting fewer rows than expected.

Check out Merge Tables in Power BI

Method 3: Export Data from Power BI Service (Dashboard)

If you’re working in the Power BI Service (the web version at app.powerbi.com), the export process is slightly different and gives you a few more choices.

For this example, I’ll use a matrix visual on a published dashboard.

Step 1: Navigate to your dashboard

Go to the Power BI Service and open the dashboard that contains the visual you want to export. In my example, I’m working with a matrix visual.

Step 2: Open the Export menu

Click the three dots (…) at the top-right corner of the matrix visual and select Export data. You can see the screenshot below for your reference.

Step 3: Choose your export type

This is where it gets interesting. You’ll see three options:

• Data with current layout — Exports the data exactly as it appears in the visual, without the colors, icons, or conditional formatting. Great for a clean tabular view.
• Summarized data — Exports only the aggregated data used to build the visual (e.g., totals, averages). Best when you want a summary snapshot.
• Underlying data — Exports the raw, row-level data behind the visual. Most detailed, but requires permission from the report author.

Let’s go through each one.

Export with Current Layout

1. Click the … on your visual → select Export data.

2. Choose Data with current layout.

3. Click the Export button.
4. An .xlsx file downloads automatically to your system.
5. Open it in Excel — the data matches the structure you see in the visual.

This is perfect when you want a clean, presentation-friendly data snapshot without all the formatting baggage.

Export Summarized Data

1. Click the … → select Export data.

2. Choose Summarized data.

3. Select the file format — pick .xlsx if you want it to open directly in Excel, or .csv if you prefer a lighter file.
4. Click Export.
5. Open the file — you’ll see the aggregated numbers that Power BI used to build the chart.

Use summarized data when you’re sharing a high-level overview and don’t need granular row-level details. This way, you can export summarized data from the Power BI Dashboard to Excel.

Export Underlying Data

This one gives you the most detail — the raw, unaggregated rows powering the visual.

1. Select the visual -> click the three dots (…) -> select the Export data. After that, if you face an error like “The report author turned off this option.” Check the screenshot below.

2. To solve this error in the Power BI Desktop, go to the Report setting and select Allow end users to export data with current layout, summarized data, and underlying data from the service or Report Server under the Export data. Then click OK.

3. After that, republish your report or visual.

4. Go to the Power BI service and open the report you publish above. Then Select the visual -> click the three dots (…) -> select the Export data.

5. Next, select Underlying data. Then click the Export button.

6. The Excel file is downloaded to the local system. Then, open it in Excel. You can see the raw data in the Excel file.

You can export underlying data in Power BI service to Excel using this method.

Check out Card Visual in Power BI

Method 4: Copy a Table Directly into Excel

Here’s one that a lot of people don’t know about. If you just want to copy a table from Power BI Desktop and paste it into Excel without saving a file, this method is super quick.

1. In Power BI Desktop, switch to the Data view (the table icon on the left sidebar).
2. Find the table you want to copy.
3. Right-click on the table name.
4. Select Copy table.
5. Open Excel, click on a cell, and press Ctrl + V to paste.

The data pastes in perfectly with column headers. This is great for quick ad-hoc exports when you don’t want to go through the full export flow.

Method 5: Analyze in Excel (Power BI Service)

This is the most powerful method and the one most people haven’t tried yet. “Analyze in Excel” creates a live connection between your Power BI dataset and an Excel workbook. When the Power BI data refreshes, your Excel file can pull the latest data too.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Go to the Power BI Service and navigate to your workspace.
2. Find the dataset you want to connect to Excel.
3. Click the three dots (…) next to the dataset name.
4. Select Analyze in Excel.
5. An .xlsx file will download. Open it.
6. Enable editing and content when prompted.
7. You’ll see a pivot table pane in Excel linked to your Power BI data.

From here, you can build your own pivot tables and pivot charts using Power BI data, directly inside Excel. And when your data refreshes in Power BI, you can refresh the Excel file to get the latest numbers.

Alternatively, you can trigger this from inside a report: go to the report → click Export in the top menu → select Analyze in Excel.

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Power BI Export to Excel — Limitations to Know

Before you go and export everything in sight, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Row limits: CSV exports are capped at 30,000 rows. Excel exports go up to 150,000 rows. If your dataset is larger, you’ll need a different approach (like Power Automate or direct API access).
• Conditional formatting doesn’t carry over: Any color scales, data bars, or icon sets you’ve set up in Power BI won’t appear in the Excel export.
• One visual at a time: You can’t export an entire report page in one go. You have to export each visual separately.
• Permissions matter: Exporting underlying data requires the report author to have enabled that option in Desktop settings.
• Calculated measures: Measures created in Power BI (like DAX formulas) may not behave exactly the same way once exported to Excel.
• Show items with no data: If this option is enabled in a visual, underlying data export won’t work for that visual.

Which Method Should You Use?

Here’s a quick way to decide which method to use.

• Just need a quick data dump from a visual? → Use Method 2 (Export from Desktop) or Method 3 (Export from Service).
• Need summarized numbers for a report? → Use Summarized Data export from Power BI Service.
• Need the raw row-level data? → Use Underlying Data export.
• Want a live, refreshable connection? → Use Analyze in Excel.
• Just need to paste a table quickly? → Use the Copy Table method.

Each method has its place. Most of the time, you’ll find yourself using the three-dot export from a visual — it handles 80% of everyday scenarios.

Conclusion

I hope you understand how to export data into Excel in both Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service.

To recap, here are the five methods we covered:

• Export from Power BI Desktop — right-click the visual and export as CSV or Excel
• Export from Power BI Service — use the three-dot menu on any visual
• Summarized Data export — great for high-level snapshots
• Underlying Data export — when you need every raw row
• Analyze in Excel — best for a live, refreshable connection

Start with the method that fits your immediate need. If you’re just sharing numbers with a colleague, a quick visual export does the job. If you need something more dynamic and refreshable, go with Analyze in Excel.

Got a question or ran into an issue with any of these steps? Drop it in the comments below — I’m happy to help.

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