Grafana Sharing and Export

Building a great dashboard is only half the work. Sharing it with the right people — whether teammates, stakeholders, or the public — completes the loop. Grafana provides several sharing and export options suited to different audiences and security requirements.

Share Dialog

Every dashboard has a Share button in the top toolbar. Clicking it opens the Share dialog with four tabs: Link, Embed, Snapshot, and Export.

Sharing via Link

The Link tab generates a direct URL to the current dashboard. The URL includes the current time range and variable values, so the recipient sees exactly the same view you currently see.

Shortened URL

Enable Shorten URL to generate a compact link instead of a long URL with dozens of parameters. The short URL is stored in the Grafana database and redirects to the full URL when opened.

Current Time Range Lock

Toggle Lock current time range to bake the selected time range into the URL. Without this, the recipient's browser opens the dashboard with the default time range. With it, they see exactly the same time window you were viewing — useful for sharing a specific incident window with your team.

Without lock:  opens dashboard at "Last 6 hours" (default)
With lock:     opens dashboard at "2024-03-01 13:00 to 14:00" (incident window)

Embed in Websites or Internal Tools

The Embed tab generates an HTML <iframe> code snippet. Paste this code into any HTML page — an internal wiki, a status page, or a React application — and the live Grafana panel appears inside that page.

<iframe
  src="http://localhost:3000/d/abc123/server-health?orgId=1&kiosk"
  width="800"
  height="400"
  frameborder="0">
</iframe>

Adding &kiosk to the URL removes the Grafana navigation bar so only the dashboard content appears inside the frame. Adding &theme=light switches to the light theme for better readability on white-background pages.

Snapshots

A snapshot is a static copy of a dashboard at a specific moment. The snapshot captures the current data and stores it as a read-only page. Anyone with the snapshot link can view it — even people without a Grafana account.

Local Snapshot

A local snapshot stores the static data inside your Grafana instance. The link only works for people who can reach your Grafana server.

Publish to Snapshots.raintank.io

Click Publish to snapshots.raintank.io to upload the snapshot to Grafana's free public snapshot hosting service. You receive a public URL that anyone on the internet can access. No login required for the viewer.

Use snapshot when:
  ✓ You need to share data with someone outside your organisation
  ✓ You want to preserve a point-in-time view during an incident review
  ✓ The recipient has no Grafana account
  ✗ Never for sensitive or confidential data (snapshots can be public)

Snapshot Expiry

Set an expiry time when creating a snapshot — 1 day, 7 days, 1 year, or never. Expired snapshots stop displaying data but their URLs may still exist. Set a reasonable expiry to avoid stale snapshots lingering forever.

Dashboard Export to JSON

The Export tab downloads the entire dashboard definition as a JSON file. This JSON file contains every panel, query, variable, and setting that makes up the dashboard. Use it for:

Backing up dashboards
Moving dashboards between Grafana instances
Sharing dashboards with the community on grafana.com
Version-controlling dashboards in a Git repository

Export for External Sharing

Toggle Export for sharing externally before downloading. This replaces hard-coded data source names with template placeholders, so the importer can map the JSON to their own data sources during import.

Without external sharing toggle:
  "datasource": { "uid": "abc123-specific-to-your-grafana" }

With external sharing toggle:
  "datasource": { "uid": "${DS_PROMETHEUS}" }  ← importer maps this

Dashboard Import

Import a JSON file by going to Dashboards → Import. Choose a JSON file from your disk, or paste the JSON text directly. You can also enter a dashboard ID from grafana.com to download community dashboards.

Kiosk Mode – Display-Only Dashboards

Kiosk mode hides all Grafana navigation elements and shows only the dashboard content. It is designed for TV monitors or information screens in offices.

Add ?kiosk to any dashboard URL to enter kiosk mode:

http://localhost:3000/d/abc123/server-health?orgId=1&kiosk

The dashboard fills the entire screen. The time range picker still appears. To auto-refresh, add the refresh parameter:

http://localhost:3000/d/abc123/server-health?orgId=1&kiosk&refresh=30s

Sharing Individual Panels

Hover over any panel, click the three-dot menu, and select Share. The Share dialog for a single panel offers the same Link, Embed, and Snapshot options but scoped to just that one panel instead of the full dashboard. The embed code generates an iframe showing only the selected panel — perfect for embedding a single chart into a status page or executive report.

Reporting (Grafana Enterprise)

Grafana Enterprise includes a Reporting feature that generates PDF reports from dashboards and emails them on a schedule. Configure a report to email a dashboard PDF to your management team every Monday morning automatically. This feature is not available in Grafana OSS but is available in Grafana Cloud with a paid plan.

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