---
title: "Drill down your metrics | Grafana Cloud 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. By default, the panels share one y-axis range so you can compare values across them. To scale each panel to its own data, turn off **Sync y-axis**. Your choice is saved in your browser and applies every time you open the **Breakdown** tab.
- 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

The panel menu lets you view the metric in Explore, ask Grafana Assistant about it, add it to a dashboard, create an alert, bookmark it, or copy its URL.

To open the visualization in Explore, select the panel menu and then 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`.