Using the BigQuery web UI in the GCP Console

BigQuery exposes a graphical web UI in the GCP Console that you can use to create and manage BigQuery resources and to run SQL queries.

See the BigQuery web UI quickstart for a working introduction to the web UI.

Before you begin

Before you can use the BigQuery web UI, you must create or select a project and enable billing using the GCP Console.

Sign in to your Google Account.
If you don't already have one, sign up for a new account.
Select or create a GCP project.

Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources you create in this tutorial, create a new project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project and tutorial.

Go to the Manage resources page
Make sure that billing is enabled for your project.

Learn how to enable billing
BigQuery is automatically enabled in new projects. To activate BigQuery in a pre-existing project, Enable the BigQuery API.
Enable the API

Limitations

The beta release of the BigQuery web UI is subject to the following limitations. Customers interested in performing tasks in the BigQuery web UI that are currently unsupported should consider using the classic web UI instead.

Currently, you cannot use the BigQuery web UI to:

Work with the BigQuery Data Transfer Service
Assign access controls to datasets
View the query execution timeline
Navigate between the first and last page of query results
Display the pricing warning when you run a SELECT * SQL query

Also note that the BigQuery public datasets are not displayed by default in the BigQuery web UI. To pin the public datasets, click the "Add data" dropdown and then select "Explore public datasets".

Opening the BigQuery web UI

To open the BigQuery web UI:

Open the GCP Console.

Go to the GCP Console
In the navigation pane, click BigQuery.

You can also open the BigQuery web UI directly by entering the following URL in your browser.

https://console.cloud.google.com/bigquery

Clicking the button below will open the BigQuery web UI directly using your most recently accessed project.

Go to the BigQuery web UI

Switching to the classic web UI

If you prefer to use the classic web UI, you can switch to it by using the information icon to the right of the title bar. To switch to the classic web UI, click the Go to Classic UI button at the top of the window.

Link to the classic web UI

BigQuery web UI overview

The BigQuery web UI has three main sections:

The left side of the page (the navigation panel):

The navigation panel contains a list of BigQuery resources you can view.
- The Query history section displays your project's query jobs.
- The Saved queries section displays your saved and shared queries.
- The Job history section displays your project's load, export, and copy jobs.
- The Transfers section opens the BigQuery Data Transfer Service UI.
- The Resources section contains a list of pinned projects. Expand a project to view datasets and tables that you have access to.
- A search box is available in the Resources section that allows you to search for resources by name (project name, dataset name, table name, or view name) or by label. The search bar finds all resources that match, or contain matches, within your current and pinned projects.
The details panel:

Contains information appropriate to the selected action in the navigation panel. For example, if you click a dataset in the navigation panel, the details panel displays information about the dataset.
The query editor:

When you click Compose new query, the query editor appears above the details panel. Click Hide Editor to hide the editor when you no longer need it.

BigQuery web UI screenshot

Displaying resources

The navigation panel lists datasets that you can browse in the current project. Click the icon next to your project to display the datasets in that project. Click the icon next to any dataset to expand it and to show the tables within that dataset.

Clicking a dataset or table will show information about the resource in the details panel. When you click a table in the navigation panel, you can then click the Query Table button on the right side of the details panel to populate the query box with a basic query for that table. You can modify the query by hand to specify fields or customize the query however you like. You are not limited to querying the currently selected table. For more information on querying tables, see Running interactive queries.

Working with projects

All of your BigQuery work is done within a project. This project's name can be seen in the navigation panel below the filter datasets box. You can also view the current project by using the platform bar at the top of the page.

Platform bar

All of your work within the project is charged to the billing account attached to the project. For more information on BigQuery charges, see the pricing page.

In the web UI, you can:

Switch to a different project
Add (or pin) additional projects
Remove pinned projects

Switching projects

To switch projects in the BigQuery web UI:

In the platform bar at the top of the page, click your project.
In the projects dialog, click the name of the project in the list. This replaces your previous project in the UI with the one you chose.

Pinning (adding) a project

You can add or "pin" a project in the web UI by using the pin project option.

You can pin a project in one of the following ways:

Switch to the project, then pin it.
Use the Pin Project option in the navigation panel.

Option 1: Open a project then pin it

To pin a project after opening it:

Switch to the project you want to pin to the navigation panel.
In the navigation panel, click the project ID.
In the details panel, on the right side, click Pin Project.

Option 2: Use the Pin Project option

To pin a project using the Pin Project dialog:

In the navigation panel, in the Resources section, click Pin Project.
In the Pin Project dialog, click the Select a project drop-down list. You can choose a project from the Recently selected projects list, or you can use the "Filter by..." box to quickly scan the All projects list.
After choosing the project, click Pin Project to close the Pin Project dialog.

Removing a project from the UI

To remove a project you previously added (or "pinned"):

Click the project ID in the navigation pane.
In the details panel, on the right side, click Unpin Project.

Viewing job and query history

As you run jobs and run queries using the BigQuery web UI, your history is preserved in the navigation panel. Queries are also a type of job, but your query history is preserved separately for ease of use.

The job and query histories in the UI include all load, export, copy, and query jobs you submitted in the past 6 months (up to 1,000 entries). The limit of 1,000 jobs is cumulative across all job types.

To list all available jobs in the history, use the jobs.list API method or the bq ls CLI command.

Viewing job history

To view your job history, click the Job History link in the navigation panel.

In the job history details panel, click an individual job to see the details or to repeat the job. You can repeat a load job by using the web UI, but you cannot repeat an export or copy job.

Viewing query history

To view your query history, click the Query History link in the navigation panel.

In the query history details panel, click an individual query job to see the details or to open the query in the query editor. When you open the query in the query editor, you can repeat the query by clicking Run query.

Web UI display limits

The BigQuery web UI has the following display limits:

Only 1,000 datasets can be displayed in the navigation panel.
Up to 50,000 tables are displayed in the navigation pane per dataset. You can display a cumulative total of 1,000,000 tables across all datasets (including datasets in pinned projects).

Keyboard shortcuts

The following keyboard shortcuts are supported in the BigQuery web UI:

Key combination (Windows/Linux)	Key combination (Mac OS)	Action
Ctrl + Space	Ctrl + Space	If no query is open: compose new query If query editor is open: autocomplete current word
Ctrl + Enter	Cmd + Enter	Run current query
Tab	Tab	Autocomplete current word
Ctrl	Cmd	Highlight table names
Ctrl + click on table name	Cmd + click on table name	Open table schema
Ctrl + E	Cmd + E	Run query from selection
Ctrl + /	Cmd + /	Comment current or selected line(s)
Ctrl + Shift + F	Cmd + Shift + F	Format query

Examples

When the BigQuery web UI becomes generally available, you will find web UI examples throughout the How-to Guides section of the BigQuery documentation.

To see current examples of loading data and querying data using the BigQuery web UI, see the Quickstart Using the BigQuery web UI.

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Last updated February 4, 2019.