Slicers overview in Power BI

Applies to: ✅ Power BI Desktop and Power BI service

Slicers are interactive filtering controls that appear directly on the report canvas. They narrow the portion of the semantic model shown in other visuals, allowing report readers to quickly filter data without opening the Filters pane. Slicers make commonly used filters visible and accessible, showing the current filter state at a glance.

Screenshot of an animated Power BI slicer filtering related visuals on a report page.

Power BI offers multiple slicer visuals, each designed for different filtering scenarios and data types. This article provides an overview of the slicer options available in Power BI to help you choose the right slicer for your needs.

Slicer visual

The Slicer visual is a versatile filtering control that supports multiple settings including vertical list, tile, dropdown, and date picker. It works with text, numeric, and date data types and provides familiar filtering interactions.

The Date picker setting enables relative date selections that automatically roll forward as time passes. When you set a selection like "last full month," the slicer recalculates the date range each time the report loads.

For detailed guidance, see Slicer visual in Power BI.

Button slicer

The Button slicer displays filter options as interactive buttons with customizable styles and grid layouts. It supports images, icons, and flexible visual formatting to create visually appealing filtering experiences that integrate seamlessly with your report design.

For detailed guidance, see Button slicer in Power BI.

List slicer

The List slicer provides customizable list and dropdown views, with options to add pictures and labels alongside selectable values for more context. It supports hierarchies, search, and conditional formatting. Dropdown mode saves canvas space, preserves item formatting, and provides configurable drawer dimensions. Selection pills show current selections and let you remove them without opening the dropdown. A count pill shows additional selections that don't fit.

For detailed guidance, see List slicer in Power BI.

Input slicer

The Input slicer accepts free-form text or numeric input with configurable filter operators. Use it for exact string matching, partial matching (contains, starts with), numeric filtering, and flexible text-based filtering scenarios where users need to type specific values. The Input slicer can also be used in translytical task flows without a data column to capture user input for write-back scenarios.

For detailed guidance, see Input slicer in Power BI.

When to use a slicer

Use slicers to:

  • Show commonly used filters on the report canvas for quick access
  • Make the current filter state visible at a glance, without opening a dropdown or the Filters pane
  • Filter by columns that are hidden in data tables
  • Create focused reports by placing slicers next to relevant visuals

Slicers vs. Filters pane

In addition to slicers, you can use the Filters pane to apply filters at the visual, page, or report level. The Filters pane provides a centralized location for managing all filters in your report, while slicers make specific filters visible and interactive on the canvas.

Feature Slicers Filters pane
Visibility Always visible on the canvas Hidden until opened
Interactivity Direct interaction with filter values Requires opening the pane
Best for Frequently used filters, user-facing reports Complex filtering, report author use
Sync across pages Yes, with Sync slicers Report-level filters apply to all pages

For more information about the Filters pane, see Format filters in Power BI reports.

Common features across slicer types

All Power BI slicers share common capabilities:

  • Visual interactions: Configure whether a slicer filters or highlights other visuals on the page. Learn more in Change how visuals interact in a Power BI report.
  • Sync across pages: Sync slicer selections across multiple report pages.
  • Formatting options: Customize colors, borders, titles, and backgrounds.
  • Filter other slicers: By default, slicers filter other slicers on the page.

Clear selections with the header icon

All slicer types support clearing selections with the header icon. Select the eraser icon in the slicer's visual header to clear all selections in that slicer. This action removes the slicer's filter without clearing selections in other slicers.

Screenshot of a list slicer with the eraser icon highlighted and all selections cleared.

Show selected first

The List slicer and Button slicer support Show selected first. Turn on this option to display your selected items before unselected items. This feature helps you find current selections in a long list without scrolling through every value.

In a list slicer's dropdown mode, open the dropdown to access the Show selected first toggle. Turn it on to display your current selections at the top of the dropdown.

Understand Select all behavior

For slicers that support multiple selections, the Show "Select all" option setting adds a Select all item to the slicer. To enable the setting:

  1. Select the slicer, and then open the Format pane.
  2. Expand Visual > Slicer settings > Selection.
  3. Turn Show "Select all" option to On.

Selecting Select all produces the same filtering result as clearing all selections in the slicer. The slicer doesn't filter other visuals. Although every available item appears selected, Power BI doesn't store each item as an individual user selection.

When you clear one or more items after selecting Select all, Power BI uses an inverted selection. It applies an is not filter that contains only the cleared items instead of an is filter that contains every selected item.

For example, if you select all values in a Segment slicer and then clear one segment, Power BI applies a Segment is not filter for the cleared value. It doesn't apply a Segment is filter that lists every value that remains selected.

This behavior means the slicer doesn't exclude the following values unless a user explicitly clears them:

  • Values that another slicer filters out. If the other slicer's filter changes, these values remain included.
  • New values added during a data refresh. The slicer includes the new values automatically.

Screenshot of Segment slicers showing that Select all applies no filter and cleared values use an inverted is-not filter.

The Select all option uses the same inverted selection behavior in the Filters pane when you use Basic filtering.

For more information about inverted selections, see Troubleshoot visualizations in Power BI.

Sync and use slicers on other pages

You can sync a slicer to use it on multiple pages in a report. When you sync a slicer, selections made on any synced page affect visualizations across all pages where the slicer is synced.

  1. On the View ribbon, select Sync slicers. The Sync slicers pane appears between the Filters and Visualizations panes.
  1. Select a slicer on a report page to view its sync settings in the Sync slicers pane.
  2. In the Sync column, select the pages where you want the slicer selections to apply.
  3. In the Visible column, select the pages where you want the slicer to appear.

Although the slicer initially appears on synced pages at the same size and position as on the original page, you can move, resize, and format synced slicers on different pages independently.

Note

If you sync a slicer to a page but don't make it visible on that page, slicer selections made on other pages still filter the data on that page.

Sync separate slicers

You can also sync two or more separate slicers by marking them as part of a group. Syncing slicers is useful when working with composite models, as you might want to make the same selection across sources without relying on cross-source group relationships.

  1. Make sure the Sync slicers pane is visible by selecting it from the View menu.
  2. Select one of the slicers that you want in the group. In the Sync slicers pane, expand Advanced options, and enter a name for the group.
  3. Select another slicer you want to sync with the first, and enter the same group name exactly.
  4. Select either Sync field changes to other slicers, Sync filter changes to other slicers, or both depending on your scenario:
    • To keep slicer filter selections in sync, select Sync filter changes to other slicers.
    • To sync changes to the field the slicers are based on, select Sync field changes to other slicers.

Apply all and Clear all slicer buttons

When a report page has multiple slicers, you can add Apply all slicers and Clear all slicers buttons to improve performance and usability. These buttons let users make multiple slicer selections before applying them all at once, reducing unnecessary visual queries. The Clear all slicers button resets all slicers on the page with a single click.

To add these buttons, go to Insert > Buttons and select Apply all slicers or Clear all slicers.

For detailed guidance, see Create Apply all and Clear all slicers buttons in Power BI reports.

Control which visuals a slicer affects

By default, slicers filter all other visuals on the report page, including other slicers. To prevent a slicer from affecting a specific visual, use edit interactions to change the filtering behavior.

  1. Select the slicer you want to configure.
  2. On the Format menu, select Edit interactions.
  3. Filter controls appear above each visual on the page. Select None for any visual you don't want the slicer to filter.

For detailed guidance, see Change how visuals interact in a Power BI report.

Use slicers with field parameters

Field parameters let report readers dynamically change which measures or dimensions appear in visuals. When you create a field parameter, Power BI automatically generates a slicer that controls the parameter. Users select options in the slicer to change which fields the connected visuals display.

For example, you can create a field parameter containing Sales, Profit, and Quantity measures. When a user selects Profit in the slicer, all visuals using that parameter update to show profit data instead of sales.

You can also create a two-slicer setup for dimension field parameters. The first slicer lets users pick which dimension to analyze: right-click the field parameter in the Value well and select Show selected field to display the dimension options. The second slicer lets users pick values within that dimension: right-click the field parameter in the Value well and select Show values of selected field to display the values for the selected dimension.

To make a chart fully dynamic, add a field parameter for measures to the Values well and a field parameter for dimensions to the Axis well. Users can then change both what the chart measures and how it's grouped using slicers.

Animation showing slicers controlling field parameters to dynamically change a chart's measures and dimensions.

For detailed guidance on creating and using field parameters, see Let report readers use field parameters to change visuals.

Paste values in slicers

The paste feature lets you apply multiple selections to a slicer by pasting a list of values from external sources like Excel, Notepad, or emails. Instead of selecting items one by one, you can paste values directly into the slicer, and it automatically recognizes and applies all matching selections.

To paste values into a slicer:

  1. In an external application (such as Excel), create a list of values you want to filter by. Each value must be on its own line (for example, in separate rows in Excel or on separate lines in a text file).
  2. Copy the values to your clipboard.
  3. In Power BI, select the slicer on your report canvas.
  4. Press Ctrl+V to paste the values, or select the ellipsis (...) menu and choose the paste option.

The slicer selects all items that match your pasted values.

For a hierarchy slicer, include the hierarchy levels on the same line, separated by tabs. In Excel, put each level in a separate column, and then copy and paste the rows into the slicer. To select a top-level value, paste that value by itself. To select a second-level value, include both the top-level and second-level values. For lower-level selections, include all preceding levels.

Note

Paste applies exact-match selection only.

Search in slicers

Search helps you find values without scrolling through the entire list.

  1. Open the slicer's ellipsis (...) menu, and select Search. Alternatively, select the slicer and press Ctrl+F.
  2. Enter a name or keyword in the search box. The slicer shows only matching entries. For example, enter C to find values that contain that letter.
  3. Select the values you want to use to filter your report.

Specialized slicer configurations

These articles explain how to configure specific slicer behaviors that work across slicer types:

Limitations

  • You can paste up to 2,000 items into a slicer.
  • Paste is available only for the Slicer visual, List slicer, and Button slicer.
  • The Input slicer doesn't support the Paste feature. You can paste individual values directly into the input box.

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