Google Analytics boosts data export: 10M cells for unsampled explorations

Google has announced significant increases to data export limits in Google Analytics, enhancing users' ability to analyze and leverage their data. The update, revealed on October 3, 2024, just two days ago, addresses key limitations in the platform's reporting and exploration capabilities.

The recent update brings two major improvements to Google Analytics' data export functionality:

1. Unsampled Explorations: Users can now export up to 10,000,000 cells in TSV and CSV formats for unsampled explorations. This tenfold increase from the previous limit of 1,000,000 cells allows for more comprehensive data analysis.
2. Report Downloads: The row limit for downloading reports as CSV or Google Sheets has been raised to 100,000, up from the previous cap of 50,000 rows.

These enhancements significantly expand the scope of data that analysts and marketers can work with outside the Google Analytics interface.

The increased export limits have far-reaching implications for businesses and analysts utilizing Google Analytics. Here's a deeper look at how these changes affect data analysis:

Unsampled Explorations

Unsampled data provides a complete picture of user behavior, essential for accurate analysis and decision-making. The new 10,000,000 cell limit for unsampled explorations represents a massive increase in the amount of raw data available for export.

This expansion is particularly beneficial for:

• Large-scale websites with high traffic volumes
• E-commerce platforms analyzing complex user journeys
• Marketing agencies handling multiple high-traffic client accounts

With access to more unsampled data, analysts can:

• Identify subtle trends and patterns that may have been obscured by sampling
• Perform more accurate cohort analyses over extended periods
• Conduct detailed segmentation studies without data loss

Enhanced Report Downloads

The increase to 100,000 rows for report downloads in CSV and Google Sheets formats opens up new possibilities for data manipulation and visualization outside of Google Analytics. This update benefits:

• Data scientists who prefer to work with raw data in their own environments
• Marketers creating custom reports and dashboards in spreadsheet applications
• Business analysts integrating Google Analytics data with other data sources

The expanded row limit allows for:

• More comprehensive time-series analyses
• Detailed cross-channel attribution modeling
• Enhanced ability to spot long-tail keywords and content performance

Technical details of the update

According to the Google Analytics Help Center, these new limits apply on a per-property basis. Users do not need to take any action to access the increased limits; they are automatically available to all Google Analytics properties.

It's important to note that these updates do not affect event collection limits, which remain subject to separate constraints. For users requiring even higher limits, upgrading to Google Analytics 360 remains an option.

Comparison with previous limits

To put these changes in perspective, here's a comparison of the old and new limits:

This substantial increase reflects Google's commitment to providing more robust data analysis capabilities to its users.

Other configuration limits

While this update focuses on export limits, it's worth noting other configuration limits that remain unchanged in Google Analytics:

• Audiences: 100 per property
• Key events: 30 per property
• Custom insights: 50 per property
• User-scoped custom dimensions: 25 per property
• Event-scoped custom dimensions and metrics: 50 each per property

These limits ensure optimal performance and data management within the Google Analytics platform.

Key Facts

• Announcement date: October 3, 2024
• Unsampled explorations export limit increased to 10,000,000 cells
• Report download limit increased to 100,000 rows
• Updates apply to all Google Analytics properties automatically
• Event collection limits remain unchanged
• Upgrade to Google Analytics 360 still required for users needing even higher limits
• Other configuration limits (audiences, custom dimensions, etc.) remain the same