How to Schedule a Looker Studio Report by Email (2026)
To schedule a Looker Studio report by email, open the report, click Share, then Schedule delivery, add up to 50 recipients, choose the pages and how often it repeats, and click Schedule. Each email carries the report as a PDF attachment, a preview of up to five pages, and a link back to the live report.
Looker Studio is called Data Studio again: Google changed the name back in April 2026, and the product now lives at datastudio.google.com. The menus and the steps below are the same under either name. Every limit on this page was checked against Google's own documentation on 29 October 2026.
This guide is on the MetricsWatch blog, and MetricsWatch sells scheduled email reports. The Data Studio steps are the same either way, and the section on when to use something else is near the end.
How to schedule a Looker Studio report by email
- Open the report in view mode. You need to own it, be an editor, or have scheduling permission on it.
- Click Share in the top right, then Schedule delivery.
- Type the recipients' email addresses. You are always on the list yourself.
- Pick the pages to include. Leave it alone to send them all.
- Set the date and time of the first send.
- Under Repeat, choose daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, or Custom for something like every Tuesday and Thursday, or every two weeks on Friday.
- Click Schedule.
The send time follows your computer's time zone, and you cannot change it inside Data Studio. If your client is six hours ahead, set the start time with that in mind.
What your client receives
The email has three parts: the report as a PDF attachment, a preview image of the first pages (up to five) in the body, and a link to view the full report in Data Studio. The PDF holds every page you selected.
The schedule always uses the report's default filter values. If you change a filter on the report later, the schedule keeps sending with the old defaults, and when you edit a schedule you can only use filters the report already has.
Free Data Studio versus Data Studio Pro
Scheduling works without paying, with limits. Data Studio Pro lifts most of them.
| Limit | Data Studio (free) | Data Studio Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Price | No charge | $9 per user per project per month |
| Schedules per report | 1 | Up to 200 |
| Most frequent send | Once a day | Once an hour |
| Recipients per schedule | Up to 50 | Up to 50 |
| Scheduled emails per account | 200 a day, 800 a month (3,000 a month on Google Workspace) | Unlimited |
| Custom subject and message | Not for reports in your "Owned by me" folder | Yes |
| Send now | Not for reports in your "Owned by me" folder | Yes |
| Deliver to Google Chat or Slack | No | Yes |
The one-schedule limit is the one agencies hit first. A report that goes to two clients on different days, or to the same client weekly and monthly, needs a copy of the report for each schedule, or Pro.
Ready to streamline your reporting?
MetricsWatch pulls twelve sources into one white-label report, delivered on your schedule: Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Search Console, Google Business Profile, Google Sheets, Microsoft Advertising, Facebook Ads, Facebook Pages, Instagram, LinkedIn Ads, LinkedIn Pages, and Mailchimp. Starts at $49/month. 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why a scheduled report stops arriving
A schedule runs as the person who last edited it. If that person leaves the company, or loses access to the report or to any of its data sources, the schedule fails. Someone with edit access has to open the schedule and save it again, which moves it to their name.
The other usual cause is the email quota: once a personal Google account passes 200 scheduled emails in a day or 800 in a month (500 and 3,000 on Google Workspace), further emails are not sent, and there is no way to see how close you are.
When to use something else
For one or two reports, the free schedule is hard to beat. The cost shows up later, and it comes back with every new client: another report to build and connect, another schedule to set, another person whose account the schedule depends on, and another PDF your client has to open before they see a number.
MetricsWatch Reports is built for that case. You connect GA4, Search Console, Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and more, build the report once, and schedule it. The full report arrives in the body of the email, so your client reads it without opening anything; you can add a PDF if you want one. You can preview each send and add a note before it goes out, and white-label branding is included on every plan.
A schedule tells your client what happened last month. It does not tell you on the 12th that conversions dropped. MetricsWatch Alerts monitors your GA4 properties and sends an email or Slack alert (Slack from the Starter plan) when a metric moves past a threshold you set. Data Studio Pro also has alerts on charts, but their email recipients must be in your own organization.
| Data Studio schedule | MetricsWatch Reports | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the report appears | PDF attachment, a preview of up to 5 pages, and a link | The full report in the email body; PDF if you want it |
| A note to your client | Custom message on Pro, or on reports outside "Owned by me" | Add a message when you preview a send |
| Delivery | Email; Google Chat and Slack on Pro | |
| Price | Free; Pro $9 per user per project per month | From $49 per month for 2 reports |
MetricsWatch Reports costs $49 a month for 2 reports (Startup), $149 for 25 (Pro) and $399 for 100 (Agency); a year paid upfront costs ten months. A report is one set of data sources sent to one set of recipients, so a weekly report to one client counts as one. MetricsWatch Alerts starts at $79 a month. Both have a free trial with no credit card.
Frequently asked questions
Can I schedule a Looker Studio report without paying for Pro?
Yes. The free version allows one email schedule per report, sent at most once a day, to up to 50 recipients.
Is Looker Studio the same as Data Studio?
Yes. Google renamed Looker Studio back to Data Studio in April 2026. You do not need to update your reports, lookerstudio.google.com redirects to the new address, and the scheduling steps are the same.
Can I change the time zone of a scheduled report?
No. Data Studio sends on your operating system's time zone, and there is no setting for it in the product.
Can a Looker Studio report be emailed in the body instead of as a PDF?
Not in full. The email shows a preview of up to five pages and attaches the whole report as a PDF, with a link to the live version. Tools such as MetricsWatch Reports put the full report in the email body.
Can I send a scheduled Looker Studio report to Slack?
Only with Data Studio Pro, which can deliver schedules to Slack users and channels and to Google Chat.
Why did my scheduled Looker Studio report stop sending?
Usually because the person who last edited the schedule lost access to the report or a data source, or because the account passed its daily or monthly email quota.
