Export a file list from Power BI

Before you start
Narrow the table to the files you want
Export in Power BI Desktop
Export in the Power BI service
Power BI's export limits
More than 30,000 files
Check the file before you use it
When Export data is missing

Before you start

A file can only be picked once Power BI knows about it, so the report has to hold the files of every source the list will draw from.

Run Discovery on the sources
Discovery records every file it finds in the reporting database, with its name, its path and the folders above it. See "Discovery" in the links below.
Refresh SMART BI.pbix
Open SMART BI.pbix in Power BI Desktop, click Refresh, and the report holds what Discovery and the earlier runs found.
Keep the columns the job needs
The export takes only the columns the visual shows. The File details table shows Name, Path and Relative Path as it is shipped; if you have changed the visual, put those columns back before exporting.

Narrow the table to the files you want

The export takes every row the File details table holds after its slicers and filters — not only the rows on screen — so the selection is made with the slicers and filters, not by scrolling.

Where the files are

Site, library, OneDrive owner or file share — one source, or several together.

What they are

File type, size, the folder they are in, words in their name.

When they changed

Created or modified before or after a date: everything touched since a cut-off, or nothing older than the retention period.

*Pick Discovery Report in File status* to list only the files not yet migrated — the usual start of a list of what is still to go. See "Follow every file from discovery to migration" in the links below.
Filters on this visual, in the Filters pane, narrow the table alone; the page's slicers narrow every visual on the page.
Check the count before you export. The number of files the table holds should be below 30,000 — see Power BI's export limits
Save the selection as a bookmark, or note the slicer values, so the same list can be made again later — for a second pass, or for the sign-off.

Export in Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop is free and opens SMART BI.pbix as it is downloaded from the Dashboard. It exports a table to a CSV file only.

Open the Files page
Open SMART BI.pbix and go to the page with the File details table.
Open the table's menu
Point at the File details table and click More options (…) in its top-right corner.
Choose Export data
Power BI Desktop asks where to save the file.
Save the CSV file
Pick a folder and give the file a name that says what it holds — Wave 2 Finance 2026-10.csv rather than data.csv — and click Save.

The file has commas between the columns and the table's column headings on its first line: exactly what a File List CSV job reads. Upload it to Nextcloud Files as it is.

Export in the Power BI service

When your organisation publishes SMART BI.pbix to a workspace in the Power BI service, the export runs in the browser instead. The published report shows the data as of its last refresh there.

Open the report's Files page
Open the report in the Power BI service and go to the page with the File details table.
Choose Export data
Click More options (…) in the table's top-right corner, then Export data.
Choose the data and the format
Choose Summarized data — the rows and columns the table shows — and .csv as the file format. Click Export.
Save the file
The browser saves it, by default in your Downloads folder.

The service can also export to Excel, with room for more rows; see More than 30,000 files

Power BI's export limits

Power BI limits how many rows one export holds. The limit depends on where you export and in which format:

Exported from	File format	Most rows in one export
Power BI Desktop	.csv	30,000
Power BI service	.csv	30,000
Power BI service	Excel .xlsx	150,000
Power BI service	Excel .xlsx with a live connection	500,000

The app itself reads up to 1,000,000 files from one list, so Power BI's limit is the one that counts. These are Microsoft's limits and may change; Microsoft's article on exporting data from a Power BI visual has the current figures.

A longer list is cut at 30,000 files

Rows past the limit are not in the exported file. When the job dialog says Found: … listing 30000 files, the list has almost certainly been cut: split it, as shown below, rather than migrating only part of the selection.

More than 30,000 files

A selection larger than one export can still be migrated in full. Two ways work well:

Split the list (recommended)

Export the selection in parts, each under 30,000 files: one slicer value at a time — one site, one library, one owner, one year. Give each part a File List CSV job of its own, all in the same group, and release them together. Each run then keeps its own list, and a part that fails can be run again on its own.

Export to Excel from the service

In the Power BI service, choose Excel .xlsx in Export data — up to 150,000 rows. Open the file in Excel, delete any line above the column headings, and save it with Save As → CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited).

One job takes one list: a job cannot read several CSV files, so a split list is several jobs.
When the selection is whole libraries or shares, a job with that library or share as its source, narrowed with the file selection filters, may be simpler than a list. See "Choose which files a job takes" in the links below.
Coming: a Dynamic BI data query job takes the files a Power BI filter picks without any export, and so without the 30,000-row limit — you record the visual's query with Performance Analyzer instead. It is under development.

Check the file before you use it

Put the file in Nextcloud Files, link it to the job with Choose file, and read what the job dialog found: the number of files, and a preview of the first lines with the Name and Path columns first.

Things that can go wrong on the way

Opened and saved again in Excel. Characters such as accents can be lost when Excel saves a CSV file in an older format. Upload Power BI's own CSV file without opening it in Excel — or, from Excel, save it as CSV UTF-8. Commas or semicolons between the columns both work: Excel in a language that writes decimals with a comma saves with semicolons, and the job reads them as they are.
An apostrophe in front of a name. Power BI puts ' in front of a text value that starts with =, +, - or an at sign, so Excel will not read it as a formula. A file named -draft.docx arrives as '-draft.docx: remove the apostrophe from such names before you use the list.
A line above the headings. An Excel export can begin with a line saying which filters were applied. The column headings must be the first line: delete it before saving as CSV.
Columns left out. Without Name the check turns the file down; without Relative Path the files land without the folders they had.

When Export data is missing

Report authors and Power BI administrators can switch exporting off, and Export data is then greyed out or not offered at all.

In Power BI Desktop, the report's own setting is under File → Options and settings → Options → Current file → Report settings → Export data.
In the Power BI service, the organisation's Power BI administrator may have switched exporting off for everyone; ask them, or export from Power BI Desktop instead.
Row-level security exports only the rows you are allowed to see, so a colleague's export of the same selection can hold more files than yours.

The list stays with the run

When SMART Migration claims the job, the app copies the CSV file into the run's folder in SMART Migration Reports. Years later, the run still shows exactly which files were picked in Power BI — even when the list in Files has been changed since.

See also