Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.

Documentation Grafana documentation Panels and visualizations Configure a legend

Configure a legend

A panel includes a legend that you can use to identify and interpret data displayed in a visualization. Each legend option adds context and clarity to the data illustrated in a visualization.

Supported visualizations

Legends are supported for the following visualizations:

• Bar chart
• Candlestick
• Histogram
• Pie chart
• State timeline
• Status history
• Time series
• Trend
• XY chart

Geomaps and heatmaps also have legends, but they only provide the choice to display or not display a legend and don’t support other legend options.

Legend options

You can find the following options under the Legend section in the panel edit pane.

Visibility

Set whether the legend is displayed or not. Use the switch to toggle a legend on or off.

Mode

Set the format in which the legend is displayed. Choose from:

• List
• Table

When you format a legend as a table, other information about the legend, such as associated values or where it’s located in the visualization, might be displayed as well.

Placement

Set where on the visualization a legend is displayed. Choose from:

• Bottom
• Right

Width

If you set the legend placement to Right, the Width option becomes available. Leave the field empty to allow Grafana to automatically set the legend width or enter a value in the field.

Values

You can add more context to a visualization by adding series data values or calculations to a legend. You can add as many values as you’d like. After you apply your changes, you can scroll the legend to see all values.

Change a series color

By default, Grafana sets the colors of your series data, but you can change them through the panel legend. To change the series data color, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the panel you want to update.
2. In the legend, click the color bar associated with the series.
3. Select a pre-set color in the Colors tab or set a custom color in the Custom tab, using the picker or RGB values.
4. Save the dashboard.

Isolate series data in a visualization

Visualizations can often be visually complex, and include many data series. You can simplify the view by removing series data from the visualization through the legend, which isolates the data you want to see. When you do this, Grafana automatically creates a new override in the Override section.

To isolate a series, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the panel you want to update.

2. In the legend, click the label of the series you want to isolate.

   The system removes all other series data from view.

3. To incrementally add series data back to an isolated series, press the Ctrl or Command key and click the label of the series you want to add.

4. To save your changes so that they appear to all viewers of the panel, save the dashboard.

To revert back to the default view that includes all data, click any series label twice.

Sort series

When you format a legend as a table and add values to it, you can sort series in the table by those values. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the panel you want to update.

2. Hover over any part of the panel you want to work on to display the menu on the top right corner.

3. Click the menu and select Edit.

4. Scroll to the Legend section of the panel edit pane.

5. Under Mode, select Table.

6. Under Values, select the value or calculation that you want to show.

   The legend table now displays values.

7. Click the calculation name header in the legend table to sort the values in the table in ascending or descending order.