When I tried to export more than 500 rows in Google Analytics for the first time

Most Google Analytics users know that all reports in GA are subject to a maximum of the first 500 rows when exporting. The full list of data can’t be seen in the GA interface if the rows are more than 500. It only shows 500 rows on each report page. Also, the data can be downloaded 500 records at a time. However, I didn’t know that until I tried to download more than 500 rows of data to my spreadsheet. Like others, when I am stuck, I google on the internet to find an answer.

Many GA gurus provide the same solution.

Append &limit=x to the end of the URL.
where X = the numbers of rows I need to export. For older Excel (2003), the maximum rows are 63,500.

Some suggests, to make it simple, to append &limit=50000 to the end of the URL. When exporting, I will get back 50000 or whatever rows.

Well, I did follow the direction by changing Show Row option at the bottom of the report to 500 and adding &limit=50000 to the end of the URL. This made my Top Content URL look like below.




https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/top_content?id=8010242&
pdr=20090126-20090225&cmp=average&trows=500
#lts=1235671650953&limit=50000

Then I clicked Export, selected CSV and downloaded the file...

Wait! It didn’t work! I still got only 500 rows on my spreadsheet. What did I miss? I googled again to check if I missed anything. Seemed like I did everything right. This is not supposed to be complicated!

Finally, I figured out what happened.

It's so simple!

After adding &limit=5000 to the end of the URL. I need to press ENTER before clicking Export to override the URL. Without pressing ENTER, the URL will remain the same.

Now I know… I told you learning by doing is the best way to learn…