How to Hide a Slicer in Power BI

Creating a truly effective Power BI report isn't just about showing data, it's about delivering a clean, intuitive, and focused user experience. Nothing clutters a dashboard faster than a dozen slicers permanently taking up valuable screen space. This article will show you exactly how to hide and show slicers on command, giving your reports a polished, professional feel and making them much easier for your audience to use.

Why Hide a Slicer in the First Place?

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." Hiding slicers isn't just a neat trick, it's a fundamental design choice that dramatically improves your dashboards. Here's what you gain:

• Maximized Screen Real Estate: Slicers are essential for filtering, but they don't need to be visible 100% of the time. Hiding them frees up space for more important visuals, letting your KPIs and charts take center stage.
• Reduced Visual Clutter: A high number of visible filters can be overwhelming for users, especially those who aren't data experts. A cleaner interface looks more professional and is less intimidating to navigate.
• A Guided Analytical Experience: By tucking filters away into a collapsible pane, you create a more app-like experience. Users can focus on the initial overview and then choose to "drill down" by opening the filter panel when they're ready to explore.
• Improved Performance (Slightly): While not a massive performance booster, rendering fewer visuals on the initial load-in page can contribute to a marginally faster experience, especially in complex reports.

The Core Method: Using Bookmarks and the Selection Pane

The magic behind hiding visuals in Power BI lies in combining a few key features: the Selection Pane, Bookmarks, and Buttons. Think of it this way: the Selection Pane lets you toggle what's visible, Bookmarks save those "visible" or "hidden" states, and Buttons let the user trigger those saved states. Let's walk through it step-by-step.

Step 1: Set Up Your Report and Enable the Panes

First, get your basic report elements on the canvas. For this example, let's assume you have a bar chart showing Sales by Country, and you have a slicer that filters by Product Category.

Next, you need to open two essential panes. Go to the View tab in the ribbon at the top of Power BI Desktop. In the "Show panes" section, make sure you check the boxes for:

• Selection Pane: This pane lists every single object on your report page (visuals, shapes, text boxes, etc.) and has a small eye icon next to each one. Clicking the eye icon toggles the visibility of that object.
• Bookmarks Pane: This pane allows you to capture and save the current state of your report page - including the visibility of objects and filter slicers.

Your workspace should now have a Bookmarks and a Selection pane open on the right-hand side.

Step 2: Create a State with the Slicer Visible

This is your starting point. The slicer is already visible on the canvas, so you just need to save this view.

1. Click Add in the Bookmarks pane.
2. Power BI will create a new bookmark, likely named "Bookmark 1." Double-click the name and rename it to something descriptive, like "Slicers Visible."
3. Now, click the three dots (...) next to your new bookmark and look at the options. This next step is the most critical part. You need to uncheck the box for Data. Why? If 'Data' is checked, the bookmark will save the current filter selections. This means every time a user shows the slicers, it will reset any filters they've applied. By unchecking 'Data,' you're telling the bookmark to only care about the display (what is shown/hidden), not the filter context.
4. Leave Display checked. You can uncheck "Current Page" if you wish, but the key is to disable "Data."

Step 3: Create a State with the Slicer Hidden

Now, let's create the second state where the slicer is hidden.

1. Go to the Selection Pane. Find your slicer in the list. Give it a clear name if it doesn't already have one (e.g., "Product Category Slicer").
2. Click the eye icon next to the slicer's name. The slicer will instantly disappear from your report canvas. This is the state you want to save.
3. Go back to the Bookmarks Pane and click Add again.
4. Rename this new bookmark to "Slicers Hidden."
5. Just like before, click the three dots (...) next to the "Slicers Hidden" bookmark and uncheck the Data option.

You can quickly test this. Click on your "Slicers Visible" bookmark - the slicer should reappear. Click on your "Slicers Hidden" bookmark - it should disappear.

Step 4: Add Buttons to Trigger the Bookmarks

Bookmarks are useless without a way for the user to activate them. That’s where buttons come in.

1. Go to the Insert tab in the ribbon. Click on Buttons and select a button shape (a simple "Blank" button is often best for this, as you can customize it with text or icons).
2. Place the button on your report where you want the "hide slicers" function to be. With the button selected, go to the Format pane.
3. Under Button Style, you can add text. Let's add the text "Hide Filters."
4. Most importantly, toggle the Action setting to "On."
5. Now, add a second button. This one will bring the slicers back. You can place it where it makes sense for your design — maybe a filter icon at the top of the report.
6. Select this second button, go to its Action settings, and set the Type to Bookmark and the Bookmark to "Slicers Visible."

Now, hold Ctrl and click your buttons in Power BI Desktop to test them. (In the published Power BI service, your users will just do a single click). It works! However, you’ll notice a problem: both buttons are always visible. Let's fix that.

Step 5: Toggling the Button Visibility

To create a truly seamless experience, the "Hide" button should only be visible when the slicers are, and the "Show" button should only be visible when they're hidden.

1. Make the slicer panel visible by clicking your "Slicers Visible" bookmark.
2. In the Selection Pane, hide the "Show Filters" button (click the eye icon). Your "Hide Filters" button should still be visible.
3. Now, go to the Bookmarks pane, click the three dots (...) next to your "Slicers Visible" bookmark, and click Update. This re-saves the bookmark with the new visibility settings for the buttons.
4. Next, make the slicer panel hidden by clicking the "Slicers Hidden" bookmark.
5. In the Selection Pane, hide the "Hide Filters" button and make the "Show Filters" button visible.
6. Finally, go to the Bookmarks pane, click (...) next to your "Slicers Hidden" bookmark, and click Update.

Now, when you toggle between the states, the buttons will toggle along with the slicer, creating a clean, professional user experience.

Advanced Technique: Building a Collapsible Slicer Pane

Hiding a single slicer is great, but what if you have ten? Applying this method to each one would be a nightmare. A much better approach is to create a full "slicer pane" that slides in and out.

1. Create the Pane Background

Go to the Insert tab, click on Shapes, and add a Rectangle to your report. Resize and position it on the side of your report (usually the left) where you want your filter pane to be. Set its color to something that matches your report's theme, like a light gray.

2. Arrange Your Slicers and Buttons

Drag all of your slicers and place them on top of this rectangle shape. Also, add your "close" or "hide" button inside this pane (an "X" icon works perfectly for this). You will also need a "show" or "filter" icon, which should sit just outside the pane, ready to be clicked when the pane is hidden.

3. Group Your Objects

This is the secret to making this scalable. In the Selection Pane, hold down the Ctrl key and select the background rectangle, all of your slicers, and your "hide/close pane" button. Right-click on the selected items and choose Group > Group. Power BI will create a single group containing all these objects. Rename this group to something clear, like "Slicer Panel."

4. Apply the Bookmark Method to the Group

Now, you can repeat the exact same bookmarking process from before. The only difference is that instead of clicking the eye icon for a single slicer in the Selection Pane, you'll be clicking the eye icon for the entire "Slicer Panel" group. This allows you to hide and show a dozen objects with a single click.

• Create a "Slicer Panel Visible" bookmark where the group and the "close" icon are visible, but the "open" icon is hidden. Remember to uncheck 'Data'!
• Create a "Slicer Panel Hidden" bookmark where the group and the "close" icon are hidden, but the "open" icon is visible. And again, uncheck 'Data'!
• Assign these bookmarks to their respective button actions and you're done. You've created a slick, collapsible menu that looks like it belongs in a custom-built web application.

Common Pitfalls and Best Practices

• The 'Data' Checkbox: It bears repeating: Ninety-nine percent of the time you have issues with this method, it's because you forgot to uncheck the "Data" option on your bookmarks. If your filters are resetting every time you click a button, this is the culprit.
• Layering Objects: Use the Selection Pane to control the Z-order (the front-to-back layering) of your objects. Drag items up or down in the list to bring them forward or send them backward. Your interactive elements, like buttons and slicers, should always be layered on top of background shapes.
• Think About User Flow: Use intuitive icons, like a filter symbol (funnel) to open the pane and an 'X' to close it. Position the 'open' button in a consistent, predictable location so users know where to find it.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to hide slicers using bookmarks is a simple yet high-impact skill that elevates your Power BI reports from functional to genuinely delightful. By clearing the clutter and creating an interactive filter pane, you provide your users with a cleaner, more focused experience that empowers them to explore data on their own terms.

While mastering specific techniques in tools like Power BI is a valuable skill, this kind of setup - configuring panes, layers, and states - can feel tedious when you have to do it for every new sales or marketing dashboard. We wanted to skip that manual work entirely, so we built Graphed to simplify this entire process. Instead of building manually, you just connect your data sources (like Google Analytics, Shopify, or HubSpot) and describe the report you need in plain English. Your dashboards are created instantly, with the right charts and interactive filters ready to go, giving you an immediate, clear view of your performance without spending hours on configuration.