---
title: "Drill down your metrics | Grafana documentation"
description: "Filter and analyze Prometheus-compatible metrics in Grafana Metrics Drilldown using data source selection, label filters, and metric-level drilldown tabs."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Drill down your metrics

Drill down into your metrics to gain insight into your data without writing a query. First, filter the metrics that Metrics Drilldown surfaces. Then, select a metric to perform in-depth analysis.

## Filter metrics in Metrics Drilldown

To begin drilling down your data, filter the metrics that appear in Metrics Drilldown.

1. Navigate to the **Metrics Drilldown** page in Grafana. Refer to [Get started with Grafana Metrics Drilldown](/docs/grafana-cloud/visualizations/simplified-exploration/metrics/get-started/).
2. From the **Data source** dropdown, select a data source to view related metrics. Supported data sources include Prometheus and Prometheus-compatible data sources.
3. (Optional) In the **Filters** control, select **Add label**. Then, select a label name, an operator, and a value to build your filter.
   
   > Note
   > 
   > You can apply multiple filters to your metrics. If you don’t see a metric you expect, refer to [Troubleshoot missing metrics](#troubleshoot-missing-metrics).
4. (Optional) To search for metrics, type keywords in the metric search bar.
5. (Optional) From the **Sort by** dropdown, select how to sort metrics: **Default** (alphabetical, with recently selected metrics first), **Alphabetical \[A-Z]**, **Alphabetical \[Z-A]**, **Dashboard Usage** (by prevalence in dashboard panel queries), or **Alerting Usage** (by prevalence in alerting rules).
6. Use the time picker to select a date and time range from the dropdown menu, or use an absolute time range.
7. Select the refresh interval control next to the **Refresh** icon to set a refresh rate from the dropdown menu. By default, refresh is **Off**.

## Apply advanced filters

Apply advanced filters to further refine the metrics that appear in Metrics Drilldown. Access the following advanced filters from the left-side menu of the Metrics Drilldown app.

Expand table

| Filter type            | Description                                                                                                       |
|------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Rules filters          | Filter metrics based on whether they are non-rules metrics or recording rules.                                    |
| Prefix filters         | Filter metrics based on their name prefix in the Prometheus namespace. Multiple selected prefixes use “OR” logic. |
| Suffix filters         | Filter metrics based on their name suffix. Multiple selected suffixes use “OR” logic.                             |
| Recent metrics filters | Filter metrics based on when they started being ingested.                                                         |
| Group by labels        | Group metrics by their label values.                                                                              |
| Bookmarks              | View saved metrics.                                                                                               |

### Filter logic

Multiple selections for a filter apply “OR” logic, but selections between filters apply “AND” logic. For example, if you select both `envoy` and `kafka` as prefix filters, the app shows all metrics with a prefix of either `envoy` or `kafka`. Then, if you select `count` as a suffix filter, the app updates to only show metrics with the `count` suffix.

## Analyze selected metrics

After filtering the metrics in Metrics Drilldown, you can investigate the selected metrics.

1. From the **Metrics Drilldown** main page, locate the metric you want to investigate.
2. From the upper-right corner of the metric panel, click **Select**.

A detailed view of the metric opens that shows the following details:

- A **Breakdown** tab that shows time series visualizations for each of the label-value pairs for the selected metric. To add a label-value pair to your filters, select **Select** to drill down into a label, then select **Add to filters** on the value you want.
- A **Related metrics** tab that shows other metrics with similar names and common prefixes. Use it to quickly find metrics that belong to the same area or task without knowing exact metric names.
- A **Related logs** tab that shows how many related log lines match your metric and lets you continue investigating in logs-focused workflows.
- A **Query results** tab that shows the raw query results for the metric. This tab appears only when the Prometheus query results component is available in your Grafana instance.

### View the metric in Explore

Using the panel menu, you can view the metric in Explore or copy the URL.

To open the visualization in Explore, use the metric panel actions and select **Explore**.

### Share and bookmark metrics

You can share a metric view with others or bookmark it for yourself.

- To share, select **Copy URL** to copy the current page URL to your clipboard. The URL isn’t saved in the app.
- To bookmark, select **Add bookmark** to save your current exploration state, including the data source, filters, selected metric, label breakdowns, and time range.

To revisit a bookmark, open the bookmarks list from the left-side menu. Bookmarks are stored locally in your browser and scoped to the selected data source, so they aren’t synced across browsers or devices. If you want to share a specific state with others, use **Copy URL** instead.

## Troubleshoot missing metrics

Some Prometheus metrics may not appear in Metrics Drilldown, even though you can view them in Explore. This happens in high-cardinality environments when the Prometheus data source enforces its **Series limit**, which defaults to 40,000 and applies to metrics, labels, and values.

To resolve this issue, choose one of the following options:

- Increase the **Series limit** in your Prometheus data source settings. Leave the field empty to use the default of 40,000, or set it to `0` to disable the limit.
  
  > Caution
  > 
  > Increasing this limit can affect Metrics Drilldown performance.
- Use the name filter to focus on a specific metric. For example: `__name__ = vm_http`.