Explore on Grafana Labs

Get started with Explore

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:35:46 -0500

Get started with Explore

Explore is your gateway for querying, analyzing, and aggregating data in Grafana. It allows you to visually explore and iterate until you develop a working query or set of queries for building visualizations and conducting data analysis. If your data source supports graph and table data, there’s no need to create a dashboard, as Explore can display the results in both formats. This facilitates quick, detailed, real-time data analysis.

With Explore you can:

Create visualizations to integrate into your dashboards.
Create queries using mixed data sources.
Create multiple queries within a single interface.
Understand the shape of your data across various data sources.
Perform real time data exploration and analysis.

Key features include:

Query editor, based on specific data source, to create and iterate queries.
Query history to track and maintain your queries.
Query inspector to help troubleshoot query performance.

Watch the following video to get started using Explore:

Before you begin

In order to access Explore, you must have either the editor or administrator basic role or the data sources explore role. Refer to Role and permissions for more information on what each role can access.

Refer to Role-based access control (RBAC) in Grafana Enterprise to understand how you can manage Explore with role-based permissions.

Explore elements

Explore consists of a toolbar, outline, query editor, the ability to add multiple queries, a query history and a query inspector.

Outline - Keeps track of the queries and visualization panels created in Explore. Refer to Content outline for more detail.
Toolbar - Provides quick access to frequently used tools and settings.
- Data source picker - Select a data source from the dropdown menu, or use absolute time.
- Split - Click to compare visualizations side by side. Refer to Split and compare for additional detail.
- Add - Click to add your exploration to a dashboard. You can also use this to declare an incident,create a forecast, detect outliers and to run an investigation.
- Time picker - Select a time range form the time picker. You can also enter an absolute time range. Refer to Time picker for more information.
- Run query - Click to run your query.
Query editor - Interface where you construct the query for a specific data source. Query editor elements differ based on data source. In order to run queries across multiple data sources you need to select Mixed from the data source picker.
- Saved queries:
  - Save query - To save the query for reuse, click the Save query button (or icon).
  - Replace query - Reuse a saved query.
- + Add query - Add an additional query.
- + Add from saved queries - Add an additional query by reusing a saved query.
Note
Saved queries is currently in public preview in Grafana Enterprise and Grafana Cloud only.
Query history - Query history contains the list of queries that you created in Explore. You can also add queries from the history to your saved queries. Refer to Query history for detailed information on working with your query history.
Query inspector - Provides detailed statistics regarding your query. Inspector functions as a kind of debugging tool that “inspects” your query. It provides query statistics under Stats, request response time under Query, data frame details under {} JSON, and the shape of your data under Data. Refer to Query inspector in Explore for additional information.

Access Explore

To access Explore:

Click on Explore in the left side menu.

To start with an existing query from a dashboard panel, select the Explore option from the Panel menu in the upper right. This opens an Explore page with the panel’s query, enabling you to tweak or iterate the query outside your dashboard.

Panel menu with Explore option
Select a data source from the drop-down in the upper left.
Using the query editor provided for the specific data source, begin writing your query. Each query editor differs based on each data source’s unique elements.

Some query editors provide a Kick start your query option, which gives you a list of basic pre-written queries. Refer to Use query editors to see how to use various query editors. For general information on querying data sources in Grafana, refer to Query and transform data.

Based on specific data source, certain query editors allow you to select the label or labels to add to your query. Labels are fields that consist of key/value pairs representing information in the data. Some data sources allow for selecting fields.

Click Run query in the upper right to run your query.

Content outline

The content outline is a side navigation bar that keeps track of the queries and visualizations you created in Explore. It allows you to navigate between them quickly.

The content outline works in a split view, with a separate outline generated for each pane.

To open the content outline:

Click the Outline button in the top left corner of the Explore screen.

You can then click on any panel icon in the content outline to navigate to that panel.

Split and compare

The split view enables easy side-by-side comparison of visualizations or simultaneous viewing of related data on a single page.

To open the split view:

Click the split button to duplicate the current query and split the page into two side-by-side queries.
Run and re-run queries as often as needed.

You can select a different data source, or different metrics and label filters for the new query, allowing you to compare the same query across two different servers or compare the staging environment with the production environment.

You can also link the time pickers for both panels by clicking on one of the time-sync buttons attached to the time pickers. When linked, changing the time in one panel automatically updates the other, keeping the start and end times synchronized. This ensures that both split panels display data for the same time interval.

Click Close to quit split view.

Time picker

Use the time picker to select a time range for your query. The default is last hour. You can select a different option from the dropdown or use an absolute time range. You can also change the timezone associated with the query, or use a fiscal year.

Click Change time settings to change the timezone or apply a fiscal year.

Refer to Set dashboard time range for more information on absolute and relative time ranges. You can also control the time range using a URL.

Mixed data source

Select Mixed from the data source dropdown to run queries across multiple data sources in the same panel. When you select Mixed, you can select a different data source for each new query that you add.

When using Explore, the URL in the browser address bar updates as you make changes to the queries. You can share or bookmark this URL.

Note
Explore may generate long URLs, which some tools, like messaging or videoconferencing applications, might truncate due to fixed message lengths. In such cases, Explore displays a warning and loads a default state. If you encounter issues when sharing Explore links in these applications, you can generate shortened links. See Share shortened link for more information.

Generate Explore URLs from external tools

Because Explore URLs have a defined structure, you can build a URL from external tools and open it in Grafana. The URL structure is:

http://<grafana_url>/explore?panes=<panes>&schemaVersion=<schema_version>&orgId=<org_id>

where:

org_id is the organization ID
schema_version is the schema version (should be set to the latest version which is 1)
panes is a URL-encoded JSON object of panes, where each key is the pane ID and each value is an object matching the following schema:

{
  datasource: string; // the pane's root datasource UID, or `-- Mixed --` for mixed datasources
  queries: {
    refId: string; // an alphanumeric identifier for this query, must be unique within the pane, i.e. "A", "B", "C", etc.
    datasource: {
      uid: string; // the query's datasource UID ie: "AD7864H6422"
      type: string; // the query's datasource type-id, i.e: "loki"
    }
    // ... any other datasource-specific query parameters
  }[]; // array of queries for this pane
  range: {
    from: string; // the start time, in milliseconds since epoch
    to: string; // the end time, in milliseconds since epoch
  }
}

Note
The from and to also accept relative ranges defined in Time units and relative ranges.

The Share shortened link capability allows you to create smaller and simpler URLs of the format /goto/:uid instead of using longer URLs with query parameters. To create a shortened link to the executed query, click the Share option in the Explore toolbar.

Note
Available in Grafana 10.3 and later versions.

Shortened links have two options: relative time (e.g., from two hours ago to now) or absolute time (e.g., from 8am to 10am). By default, sharing a shortened link copies the selected time range, whether it’s relative or absolute.

To create a short link with an absolute time:

Click the dropdown button next to the share shortened link button.
Select one of the options under Time-Sync URL Links.

This ensures that anyone receiving the link will see the same data you see, regardless of when they open it. Your selected time range will remain unaffected.

Next steps

Now that you are familiar with Explore you can:

Query management in Explore

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:35:46 -0500

Query management in Explore

Grafana Explore provides a variety of tools to help manage your queries.

Note
For help with debugging queries, Explore allows you to investigate query requests and responses, as well as query statistics, via the Query inspector. Refer to Query inspector in Explore for more information.

Query history

Query history contains the list of queries that you created in Explore. This history is stored in the Grafana database and isn’t shared with other users. The retention period for a query history is two weeks. Queries older than two weeks are automatically deleted.

Note
Starred queries aren’t subject to the two-week retention period and aren’t deleted.

To view your query history:

Go to the Explore page.
Click Query history.

The Query history pane opens at the bottom of the page, and contains the following tabs:

Query history tab- Contains a history of all your queries, with options for searching and managing them.
Starred tab - Contains all of your starred queries.
Settings tab- Provides customizable options for your query history.

Query history tab

The Query history depicts a history of your queries for the past two weeks, unless the query is starred, which means it doesn’t get deleted. For each individual query, you can:

Run and re-run the query.
Create and/or edit a comment.
Copy a query to the clipboard.
Copy a shortened link with the query to the clipboard.
Delete a query.
Star a query.
Add a query from your history to your saved queries.

By default, query history shows you newest queries first. Click the sort box in the upper right to change to Oldest first to older queries first. You can search your queries using keywords.

Query history Starred tab

All starred queries are displayed in the Starred tab. This gives quick access to key or favorite queries without having to rewrite them.

You also have the option to switch the data source and run a starred query.

Filter query history

Filter query history in both the Query history and Starred tabs by data source name:

Click the Filter queries for specific data source(s) field.
Select the data source in the dropdown by which you want to filter your history. You can select multiple data sources.

Note
Queries with the Mixed data source appear only when filtering for “Mixed” and not when filtering by individual data source.

You can also filter queries by date using the vertical slider:

Drag the bottom circle to adjust the start date.
Drag the top circle to adjust the end date.

Search in query history

Use Search queries in both the Query history and Starred tabs to search your query history and comments using keywords.

Click in the Search queries field.
Type the keyword(s) or term you are want to search for in search field.

Query history Settings tab

You can customize your query history in the Settings tab.

Toggle Change the default active tab from “Query history” to “Starred” to make the Starred tab the default active tab.

Note
Query history settings are global, and applied to both panels in split mode.

Query inspector in Explore

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:35:46 -0500

Query inspector in Explore

The Query inspector in Grafana Explore gives you detailed statistics regarding your query, which helps you understand and troubleshoot issues with your queries. Query inspector also lets you inspect raw data, export data to a comma-separated values (CSV) file, export log results in TXT format, and view query requests.

Query inspector UI

To open Query inspector:

Go to the Explore page.
Run the query you would like to inspect.
Click Query inspector.

The Query inspector pane opens on the bottom of the Explore page, where you see the following tabs:

Stats tab - Shows statistics regarding the query, including the amount of time it takes to run the query, data processing time and the amount of data returned.
Query tab - Provides raw request and response data and time when Grafana queries the data source.
JSON tab - Allows you to view and copy the JSON data and the JSON data frame structure.
Data tab - Shows the raw data returned by the query. You can download the information to a CSV file.
Error tab - Shows any errors. Only visible if the query returns an error.

Query inspector Stats tab

You can inspect query performance in the Stats tab, which displays statistics that tell you how long your query takes, how many queries you send, the number of rows returned and trace IDs. This information can help you troubleshoot your queries, especially if any of the numbers are unexpectedly high or low.

Open the inspector.
Click the Stats tab.

Statistics display in read-only format.

Query inspector Query tab

View raw request and response in the Query tab.

Open the Query inspector and click the Query tab.
Click Refresh.

Grafana sends the query to the server and displays the result. You can drill down on specific portions of the query, expand or collapse all of it. Click Copy to clipboard to copy the data to use in other applications.

Query inspector JSON tab

View data results as JSON and as data frame JSON models in the JSON tab.

Open the Query inspector and click the JSON tab.
Choose one of the following options from the Select source dropdown menu:
- Panel data - Displays a JSON object representing the data retrieved by the visualization from Explore.
- DataFrame JSON (from query) - Displays the raw data result set without transformations and field configuration applied.

Query inspector Data tab

View, inspect and download raw query results in the Data tab.

Open the Query inspector and click the Data tab.
Click Data options to to view options under Show data frame.
Select a data results set from the dropdown menu.
For multiple queries or for queries multiple nodes, you can select Series joined by time from the dropdown to view the raw data from all of your queries at once, one result set per column. You can click any column heading to sort the data.
Toggle Formatted data to match the format in the panel.
Toggle Download for Excel to download a CSV file specifically formatted for Excel.
To download the results to a CSV file click Download CSV in the upper right of the Query inspector pane.

Download log results as TXT

Based on the type of data source (Loki, for example), or when logs are present in the results set, Grafana generates a TXT file of log raw data results in your default browser download location. You can open it in the viewer of your choice.

Click Query inspector.
Click the Data tab to view log query results.
Click Download logs.

Download trace results

Based on the data source type (Tempo, for example), Grafana generates a JSON file for trace results in one of these supported formats: Jaeger, Zipkin, or OTLP.

Click Query inspector.
Click the Data tab to view traces results.
Click Download traces.

Correlations Editor in Explore

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:35:46 -0500

Correlations Editor in Explore

Note
The Explore editor is available in 10.1 and later versions. In the editor, transformations is available in Grafana 10.3 and later versions.

Correlations allow users to build a link between any two data sources. For more information about correlations in general, please see the correlations topic in the administration page.

Create a correlation

In Grafana, navigate to the Explore page.
Select a data source that you would like to be the source data source for a new correlation.
Run a query producing data in a supported visualization.
Click + Add in the top toolbar and select Add correlation (you can also select Correlations Editor from the Command Palette).
Explore is now in Correlations Editor mode indicated by a blue border and top bar. You can exit Correlations Editor by clicking Exit in the top bar.
You can now create the following new correlations for the visualization with links that are attached to the data that you can use to build a new query:
- Logs: links are displayed next to field values inside log details for each log row
- Table: every table cell is a link
Click on a link to add a new correlation. Links are associated with a field that is used as a result field of a correlation.
In the split view that opens, use the right pane to set up the target query source of the correlation.
Build a target query using variables syntax with variables from the list provided at the top of the pane. The list contains sample values from the selected data row.
Provide a label and description (optional). A label will be used as the name of the link inside the visualization and can contain variables.
Provide transformations (optional; see below for details).
Click Save in the top toolbar to save the correlation and exit Correlations Editor mode. The link used to create the correlation is replaced with a data link in each row. When the link is clicked, the query you defined will run in another pane, with the variables replaced dynamically with the values from the selected row.

Transformations

Transformations allow you to extract values that exist in a field with other data. For example, using a transformation, you can extract one portion of a log line to use in a correlation. For more details on transformations in correlations, see Correlations.

After clicking one of the generated links in the editor mode, you can add transformations by clicking Add transformation in the Transformations dropdown menu.

You can use a transformation in your correlation with the following steps:

Select a field to apply the transformation to. Select the portion of the field that you want to use for the transformation. For example, a log line. Once selected, the value of this field will be used to assist you in building the transformation.
Select the type of the transformation. See correlations for the options and relevant settings.
Based on your selection, you might see one or more variables populate, or you might need to provide more specifications in options that are displayed.
Select Add transformation to correlation to add the specified variables to the list of available variables.

Notes for regular expressions

For regular expressions in this dialog box, the mapValue referred to in other documentation is called Variable Name here. Grafana highlights any text that matches the expression in the field value. Use regular expression capture groups to select what portion of the match should be extracted. When a valid regular expression is provided, the variable and the value of that variable appear below the Variable Name field.

Correlations examples

The following examples show how to create correlations using the Correlations Editor in Explore. If you’d like to follow these examples, make sure to set up a test data source.

Create a text to graph correlation

This example shows how to create a correlation using Correlations Editor in Explore.

Correlations allow you to use results of one query to run a new query in any data source. In this example, you will run a query that renders tabular data. The data will be used to run a different query that yields a graph result.

To follow this example, make sure you have set up a test data source.

In Grafana, navigate to Explore.
Select the test data source from the dropdown menu at the top left of the page.
Click + Add in the dropdown menu to the right and select Add correlation.
Explore is now in Correlations Editor mode, indicated by a blue border.
Select the following scenario from the scenario dropdown menu: CSV File.
Select the file, population_by_state.csv. Each cell is a link that you can click on to begin creating a new correlation.

Selecting the source of a correlation
Click on any cell in the State column to create a new correlation that attaches a data link to that entry. For example, select “California”.
In the split view, select the same data source you selected in the left pane. The helper above the query editor contains all available variables you can use the target query. Variables contain all data fields (table columns) from the selected row.
In the Scenario menu, select CSV Metric Values. The String Input field in the Query editor provides variables with population values for each year: ${1980},${2000},${2020}. This will generate a graph using variable values.
In the Query Editor Alias field, enter “${State}”.

Setting up the target of a correlation

Run a query to see that it produces a graph using sample values from the variables.
Click Save to save the correlation and exit the Correlations Editor.

After the correlation is saved, Explore will rerun the query in the left pane. By clicking a state name, the query on the right is rerun with values from the row being inserted into the CSV, thus changing the graph. The query is rerun with updated values every time you click on a state name.

Result of clicking on a data link

You can apply the same steps to any data source. Correlations allow you to create links in visualizations to run dynamic queries based on selected data. In this example we used data returned by a query to build a new query generating different visualization using the same data source. However, you can create correlations between any data sources to create custom exploration flows.

Create a logs to table correlation

In this example, you will create a correlation to demonstrate how to use transformations to extract values from the log line and another field.

To follow this example, make sure you have set up a test data source.

In Grafana, navigate to Explore.
Select the test data source from the dropdown menu at the top left of the page.
Click + Add in the dropdown menu to the right and select Add correlation.
Explore is now in Correlations Editor mode, indicated by a blue border.
In the Scenario menu, select Logs.
Expand a log line to see the correlation links. Select Correlate with hostname.
Explore opens in split view. Select the same data source you selected in the left pane. The helper above the query editor contains all available variables you can use the target query.
Expand the transformations section, and click Add transformation.
In the Field dropdown menu, select message. The log line shows up as example data.
Under Type, select Logfmt. This populates the list of variables.
Click Add transformation to correlation.
Click Add transformation again and under Field, select hostname.
Under Type, select Regular expression.
Under Expression, enter the following: -([0-9]\*) This selects any numbers to the right of the dash.
Under Variable Name, enter the following: hostNumber This populates the list of variables.
Click Add transformation to correlation to add it to the other variables.
In the data source editor, open the Scenario dropdown menu and select CSV Content.
In the text box below, provide the following and save the correlation:
csv
```
time,msg,hostNumber,status
${time},${msg},${hostNumber},${status}
```
This closes the split view and reruns the left query. Expand any log line to see the correlation button. Clicking the correlation button opens the split view with the time (a field), msg (extracted with logfmt from the log line), host number (extracted with regex from the hostname) and the status (extracted with logfmt from the log line).

Logs in Explore

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:35:46 -0500

Logs in Explore

Explore is a powerful tool for logging and log analysis. It allows you to investigate logs from different data sources including:

With Explore, you can efficiently monitor, troubleshoot, and respond to incidents by analyzing your logs and identifying the root causes. It also helps you to correlate logs with other telemetry signals such as metrics, traces or profiles, by viewing them side-by-side.

The results of log queries display as individual log lines and as a graph showing the logs volume for the selected time period.

Logs volume

When working with data sources that support a full range logs volume, Explore automatically displays a graph showing the log distribution for all submitted log queries. This feature is currently supported by the Elasticsearch and Loki data sources.

Note
In Loki, generating the full range log volume via a metric query can be resource-intensive, depending on the time range queried. This is especially challenging for smaller Loki installations. To mitigate this, we recommend that you use a proxy like nginx in front of Loki with a timeout like 10ss. Log volume histogram queries can be identified by looking for queries with the HTTP header X-Query-Tags with value Source=logvolhist; these headers are added by Grafana to all log volume histogram queries.

If the data source doesn’t support loading the full range logs volume, the logs model calculates a time series by counting log rows and organizing them into buckets based on an automatically calculated time interval. The timestamp of the first log row is used to anchor the start of the logs volume in the results. The end of the time series is anchored to the time picker’s To range. This way, you can still analyze and visualize log data efficiently even when the data source doesn’t offer full range support.

Logs

The following sections provide detailed explanations on how to visualize and interact with individual logs in Explore.

Infinite scroll

When you reach the bottom of the list of logs, you will see the message Scroll to load more. If you continue scrolling and the displayed logs are within the selected time interval, Grafana will load more logs. When the sort order is “newest first” you receive older logs, and when the sort order is “oldest first” you get newer logs.

Visualization options

You have the option to customize the display of logs and choose which columns to show. Following is a list of available options.

Option	Description
Expand / Collapse	Expand or collapse the controls toolbar.
Scroll to bottom	Jump to the bottom of the logs table.
Oldest Logs First / Newest logs first	Sort direction (ascending or descending).
Search logs / Close search	Click to open/close the client side string search of the displayed logs result.
Deduplication	None does not perform any deduplication, Exact matches are done on the whole line except for date fields. Numbers matches are done on the line after stripping out numbers such as durations, IP addresses, and so on. Signature is the most aggressive deduplication as it strips all letters and numbers and matches on the remaining whitespace and punctuation.
Filter levels	Filter logs in display by log level: All levels, Info, Debut, Warning, Error.
Set Timestamp format	Hide timestamps (disabled), Show milliseconds timestamps, Show nanoseconds timestamps.
Set line wrap	Disable line wrapping, Enable line wrapping, Enable line wrapping and prettify JSON.
Enable highlighting	Plain text, Highlight text.
Font size	Small font (default), Large font.
Unescaped newlines	Only displayed if the logs contain unescaped new lines. Click to unescape and display as new lines.
Download logs	Plain text (txt), JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), Comma-separated values (CSV)

Download log lines

This feature lets you save log data for further analysis or to share it with others in a convenient and accessible format.

In Explore there are three export options:

TXT - will export the data as visible on the screen, meaning it will take into account formatting, like line_format.
JSON - will export the raw data, regardless of the formatting, like line_format.
CSV - will export the raw data, regardless of the formatting, like line_format.

Click Download and select TXT, JSON or CSV to download log results.

Log result meta information

The following meta information displays above the retrieved log lines:

Number of received logs - Indicates the total count of logs received for the current query or time range.
Error - Displays any errors in your log results.
Common labels - Displays common labels.
Total bytes processed - Represents the cumulative size of the log data processed in bytes.

Note
The availability of certain metadata may vary depending on the data source, so you might only see details related to those specific data sources.

Escaping newlines

Explore automatically detects some incorrectly escaped sequences in log lines, such as newlines (\n, \r) or tabs (\t). When it detects such sequences, Explore provides an Escape newlines option.

To automatically fix incorrectly escaped sequences that Explore has detected:

Click Escape newlines to replace the sequences.
Review returned log lines.

Explore replaces these sequences, changing the option from Escape newlines to Remove escaping. Assess the changes, as the parsing may not be accurate based on the input. To revert the replacements, click Remove escaping.

Log level

For logs where a level label is specified, the value of this label is used to determine the log level and update the color of each log line accordingly. If the log doesn’t have a specified level label, Grafana attempts to determine if its content matches any of the supported expressions. Refer to the following table for more information. The log level is always determined by the first match. If Grafana isn’t able to infer a log level field, it gets visualized as an unknown log level.

Tip
When using the Loki data source, if level is part of your log line, you can use parsers such as json, logfmt, or regex to extract the level information into a level label. This label is used to determine the level value, allowing the histogram to display the various log levels as separate bars.

Log levels supported and mapping of log level abbreviation and expressions:

Log level	Color	Supported expressions
critical	purple	emerg, fatal, alert, crit, critical, 0, 1, 2
error	red	err, eror, error, 3
warning	yellow	warn, warning, 4
info	green	info, information, informational, notice, 5, 6
debug	blue	dbug, debug, 7
trace	light blue	trace
unknown	grey	*

Highlight searched words

When your query includes specific words or expressions for keyword search, Explore highlights them in log lines to enhance visibility. This highlighting feature facilitates easier identification and focus on the relevant content within your logs.

Note
The ability to highlight search words varies depending on data source. For some data sources, the highlighting of search words may not be available.

Log details view

In Explore, each log line has an expandable section called Log details that you open by clicking on the log line. The Log details view provides additional information and exploration options in the form of Fields and Links attached to the log lines, enabling a more robust interaction and analysis.

Fields

Within the Log details view, you have the ability to filter the displayed fields in two ways: a positive filter, which focuses on an specific field and a negative filter, which excludes certain fields. These filters modify the corresponding query that generated the log line, incorporating equality and inequality expressions accordingly.

If the data source supports it, as is the case with Loki and Elasticsearch, log details will verify whether the field is already included in the current query, indicating an active state for positive filters. This enables you to toggle it off from the query or convert the filter expression from positive to negative as necessary.

Click the eye icon to select a subset of fields to visualize in the logs list instead of the complete log line.

Each field has a stats icon, which displays ad-hoc statistics in relation to all displayed logs.

For data sources that support log types, such as Loki, instead of a single view containing all fields, fields will be displayed grouped by their type: Indexed Labels, Parsed fields, and Structured Metadata.

Links

Grafana provides data links or correlations, allowing you to convert any part of a log message into an internal or external link. These links enable you to navigate to related data or external resources, offering a seamless and convenient way to explore additional information.

Log details modes

There are two modes available to view log details:

Inline The default, displays log details below the log line.
Sidebar Displays log details in a sidebar view.

No matter which display mode you are currently viewing, you can change it by clicking the mode control icon.

Log context

Log context is a feature that displays additional lines of context surrounding a log entry that matches a specific search query. This helps in understanding the context of the log entry and is similar to the -C parameter in the grep command.

If you’re using Loki for your logs, to modify your log context queries, you can use the Loki log context query editor at the top of the table. You can activate this editor by clicking the menu for the log line, and selecting Show context. Within the Log Context view, you have the option to modify your search by removing one or more label filters from the log stream. If your original query used a parser, you can refine your search by leveraging extracted label filters.

Change the Context time window option to look for logs within a specific time interval around your log line.

Toggle Wrap lines if you encounter long lines of text that make it difficult to read and analyze the context around log entries. By enabling this toggle, Grafana automatically wraps long lines of text to fit within the visible width of the viewer, making the log entries easier to read and understand.

Click Open in split view to execute the context query for a log entry in a split screen in the Explore view. Clicking this button opens a new Explore pane with the context query displayed alongside the log entry, making it easier to analyze and understand the surrounding context.

Use Command-click or Ctrl+click to open the log context query in a new browser to view the context model. All previously selected filters get applied.

Copy log line

Click Copy log line to copy the content of a selected log line to the clipboard.

Copy link to log line

Linking log lines in Grafana allows you to quickly navigate to specific log entries for detailed and precise analysis. Click Copy shortlink to generate and copy a short URL that provides direct access to the exact log entry within an absolute time range. When you open the link, Grafana automatically scrolls to the corresponding log line and highlights it in blue, making it easy to identify and focus on relevant information.

Note
The short URL feature is currently only supported in Loki and other data sources that provide an id field.

Live tailing

Use the Live tail feature to view real-time logs from data sources.

Click Live in the Explore toolbar to switch to Live tail view.
In Live tail view, new logs appear at the bottom of the screen, and have a contrasting background, allowing you to easily track what’s new.
Click Pause to pause live tailing and explore previous logs without interruptions. or simply scroll through the logs view.
Click Clear logs to remove all displayed logs. This action resets the log view and provides a clean slate to continue your log analysis
Click Resume to resume live tailing and continue viewing real-time logs.
Click Stop to exit live tailing and return to the standard Explore view.

The Live tailing feature allows you to monitor the latest logs in real-time, making it easier to track events as they occur and promptly detect issues.

Logs sample

If the selected data source supports log samples and both log and metric queries, you will automatically see log line samples that contribute to the visualized metrics for metric queries. This feature is currently only supported by the Loki data source.

Switch from metrics to logs

If you are transitioning from a metrics data source that implements DataSourceWithQueryExportSupport (such as Prometheus) to a logging data source that supports DataSourceWithQueryImportSupport (such as Loki), Explore retains the labels from your query that exist in the logs and use them to query the log streams.

For example, after switching to the Loki data source, the Prometheus query grafana_alerting_active_alerts{job="grafana"} changes to {job="grafana"}. This will retrieve a set of logs within the specified time range, which can be searched using grep or text search.

Traces in Explore

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:35:46 -0500

Traces in Explore

You can use Explore to query and visualize traces from tracing data sources. Supported data sources include:

Here are some references to learn more about traces and how you can use them:

Query editors

You can query and search tracing data using a data source’s query editor. Note that data sources in Grafana have unique query editors.

For information on how to use the query editor to create queries for tracing data sources, refer to the documentation for each individual data source.

Trace view

The trace view provides an overview of a request as it travels through your system. The following sections provide detail on various elements of the trace view.

The trace view header includes the following:

Header title - Shows the name of the root span and trace ID.
Search - Highlights spans containing the searched text.
Metadata - Various metadata about the trace.

Minimap

Minimap displays a condensed view of the trace timeline. Drag your mouse over the minimap to zoom into a smaller time range. This also updates the main timeline, making it easier to view shorter spans When zoomed in, hovering over the minimap displays Reset selection, which resets the zoom.

Timeline

Timeline shows list of spans within the trace. Each span row consists of the following components:

Expand children - Expands or collapses all the children spans of the selected span.
Service name - Name of the service logged the span.
Operation name - Name of the operation that this span represents.
Span duration bar - Visual representation of the operation duration within the trace.

Click anywhere on the span row to reveal span details.

The Span duration bar highlights the trace’s critical path with a darker segment. This darker segment means the span lies on the trace’s critical path, following the CRISP (Critical Path for Service Performance) algorithm.

Use the highlight to focus on spans that drive end‑to‑end latency. Spans outside the critical path do not increase the trace duration.

You can also focus on this path by clicking the Show critical path only button in the Span filters options.

Span details

Traces are composed of one or more spans. A span is a unit of work within a trace that has a start time relative to the beginning of the trace, a duration and an operation name for the unit of work. It usually has a reference to a parent span, unless it’s the first span, the root span, in a trace. It frequently includes key/value attributes that are relevant to the span itself, for example the HTTP method used in the request, as well as other metadata such as the service name, sub-span events, or links to other spans.

You can expand any span in a trace and view the details, including the span and resource attributes.

For more information about spans and traces, refer to Introduction to tracing in the Tempo documentation.

Span details include span attributes, resource attributes, events, and links.

Span and resource attributes

Span attributes are key-value pairs that provide metadata about a specific span. They give context to the operation being performed, such as information about the request, response, or any relevant operational details. For example, if the span deals with calling another service via HTTP, an attribute could include the HTTP URL (maybe as the span attribute key http.url) and the HTTP status code returned (as the span attribute http.status_code).

Resource attributes are key-value pairs that describe the environment or entity that is producing the trace. They capture static information about the origin of traces, like the application name or the service version.

Span attributes are specific to a particular operation, while resource attributes are associated with the whole trace or the entire service emitting the spans. Refer to Span and resource attributes for more detail.

Events

Events are log-like records attached to a span that represent an occurrence during its execution. They record notable moments or occurrences within the span’s lifecycle, such as errors, warnings, or checkpoints. If an error occurs during an operation, an event can be added to the span to indicate what went wrong and when. Events include a timestamp, name, and key-value pairs attributes that provide additional context or details about the event.

Links

Links show relationships between spans that are not in a direct parent-child relationship. They represent associations between spans that happen concurrently or across separate trace trees, linking traces that originated from separate sources but are logically connected, such as background job processing initiated from a web request. You might use links when a trace passes through an asynchronous queue or when correlating traces from different services.

Span filters

Span filters allow you to refine the spans displayed in the trace timeline viewer. The more filters you add, the more specific the filtered spans become. Click on a trace to access Span filters.

You can add one or more of the following filters:

Service name - Filter by selecting a service name from the dropdown.
Span name - Filter by selecting a span name from the dropdown.
Duration - Filter by duration. Accepted units include ns, us, ms, s, m, h.
Tags - Filter by tags, process tags, or log fields in your span.

To only show the spans you have matched, toggle Show matches only.

Refer to Span filters for more in depth information.

Trace to logs

You can navigate from a span in a trace view directly to logs relevant for that span. This feature is available for the Tempo, Jaeger, and Zipkin data sources. Refer to each individual data source’s documentation for configuration instructions.

Click the document icon to open a split view in Explore with the configured data source and query relevant logs for the span.

Trace to metrics

You can navigate from a span in a trace view directly to metrics relevant for that span. This feature is available for the Tempo, Jaeger, and Zipkin data sources.

Refer to each individual data source’s documentation for configuration instructions. For Tempo, refer to Trace to metrics configuration.

Trace to profiles

Using Trace to profiles, you can use Grafana’s ability to correlate different signals by adding the functionality to link between traces and profiles.

For Tempo refer to Trace to profiles for configuration instructions.

Trace correlations

You can use correlations to define custom links that appear in the trace view based on trace and span information.

For Tempo, refer to Trace correlations for configuration instructions.

Node graph

You can also expand the node graph for a displayed trace. If the data source supports it, this displays spans of the trace as nodes in the graph, or provides additional context, such as a service graph based on the current trace.

Refer to Node graph for additional information.

Note
The node graph requires data to be returned from the data source in a specific format to display correctly. Refer to Data API, Nodes data frame structure and Node graph data requirements for additional information and configuration instructions.

Service graph

A service graph visualizes rates, error rates, and durations (RED), along with service relationships. After the requirements are configured, this pre-configured view is immediately available.

For additional information refer to the following documentation:

Service Graph and Service Graph view
Service graph view in Tempo documentation

Explore on Grafana Labs

Get started with Explore

Get started with Explore

Before you begin

Explore elements

Access Explore

Content outline

Split and compare

Time picker

Mixed data source

Share Explore URLs

Generate Explore URLs from external tools

Share shortened link

Share shortened links with absolute time

Next steps

Query management in Explore

Query management in Explore

Query history

Query history tab

Query history Starred tab

Filter query history

Search in query history

Query history Settings tab

Query inspector in Explore

Query inspector in Explore

Query inspector UI

Query inspector Stats tab

Query inspector Query tab

Query inspector JSON tab

Query inspector Data tab

Download log results as TXT

Download trace results

Correlations Editor in Explore

Correlations Editor in Explore

Create a correlation

Transformations

Notes for regular expressions

Correlations examples

Create a text to graph correlation

Create a logs to table correlation

Logs in Explore

Logs in Explore

Logs volume

Logs

Infinite scroll

Visualization options

Download log lines

Log result meta information

Escaping newlines

Log level

Highlight searched words

Log details view

Fields

Links

Log details modes

Log context

Copy log line

Copy link to log line

Live tailing

Logs sample

Switch from metrics to logs

Traces in Explore

Traces in Explore

Query editors

Trace view

Header

Minimap

Timeline

Span details

Span and resource attributes

Events

Links

Span filters

Trace to logs

Trace to metrics

Trace to profiles

Trace correlations

Node graph

Service graph