Hiding a Looker Studio page from a client does not lock the data. Here is what does

Is Looker Studio now called Data Studio?

Yes. Google’s Data Studio release notes show that Looker Studio was renamed to Data Studio on 16 April 2026, and the release notes on that day also changed Gemini in Looker to Gemini in Data Studio. The paid plan is now called Data Studio Pro. It is still the exact same software with a new name, so the basic rules for pages, charts and sharing have not changed.

This matters for a very simple practical reason. Most online guides and community forums still use the name Looker Studio, while Google’s official documentation uses Data Studio, so your searches can turn up two sets of guides that sound like two different tools. They are the same tool. I use Looker Studio here because that is what most people search for, and I write Data Studio when I cite Google.

The hide setting I am talking about here came out shortly before that name change. The release note from 15 January 2026 says you can hide specific charts and components from all viewers or from a chosen group of viewers. Google’s help page for report pages lists the same option for entire pages and sections.

What does hiding a page in Looker Studio actually do?

It helps to understand how report sharing works before looking at the rest. When you share a report with someone, you give them either viewer access or editor access, and that setting applies across the entire report. A viewer can look at charts and use date pickers, but an editor can change anything, including adding or modifying pages and charts.

According to Google’s documentation for adding pages and report navigation, hiding a page in view mode does three basic things. Viewers cannot get to that page or section inside the report, editors can still view and modify it, and the page is left out of PDF downloads. You can hide it for every viewer, or manage it with a group membership variable, which is just a list of email addresses and Google Groups that have permission to view the page.

Charts follow the same rule. The guide on hiding report components for viewers shows how to click the chart’s three dots, select Control visibility, and assign a group membership variable. It also points out that only Pro users can build new group membership variables, so setting up visibility rules for specific viewers needs a Data Studio Pro account for whoever configures it.

If you read both official pages carefully, you will spot an important gap. Neither page states that a hidden page is blocked if a viewer has its direct link, and Google never calls this feature a security feature. I would never test this once on a live client report and then trust that behaviour, because Google makes no promise about it and a future update could change it.

Why is a hidden page not the same as locked data?

The real control sits one level down, inside your data source. A chart in Looker Studio never stores any data on its own. It asks the data source for rows whenever it draws, and the data source decides which rows to send back, so any real lock has to live there.

A client report built on a Google Sheet usually runs on the owner’s credentials. This means the data source uses your account to read the Google Sheet or BigQuery table, so your client does not need access to the raw file. Google’s documentation on data credentials explains that this lets you share reports without viewers having their own access to the dataset. It also warns you to be sure you trust the people you share it with, and that warning is the central issue here.

Now look back at the three clients in one shared report. If you simply hide pages for each client, client B sees a clean menu, but every chart still connects to a data source that returns rows for all three clients using your credentials. The only barrier between client B and client A’s data is a navigation setting that Google documents as navigation.

You also run into the editor problem, and it is easy to trigger by mistake. If you ever give a client editor rights so they can change a title or add a new page, every hidden page becomes visible to them, because Google lets editors view and edit hidden pages. I keep clients on view access only anyway, for another reason I wrote about in how I build a client dashboard that updates itself: one helpful sort by a client can break every chart at once.

How do I stop one client seeing another client's data in Looker Studio?

There are two dependable ways to keep the rows themselves away from a viewer, plus one setting that limits what people can export once data is on their screen. The right choice depends on how your data is laid out, so here is how they compare against the two hide options.

Filtering by email is the one I would use if several clients really do share one sheet. As described on Google’s page for filtering by email address, you add a column that holds the email address allowed to see each row. The data source then only returns the rows that match whoever is viewing.

1. 01
   Add an email column to the data

   Each row gets the email of the client contact allowed to see it. Google says the email has to match the viewer's Google account, including its case, or the filter will not match.
2. 02
   Edit the data source and open Filter by email

   Tick Filter data by viewer email, pick the email column, and go back to All fields.
3. 03
   Tell the client what they will see

   Viewers have to sign in to a Google account and agree to share their email address. Until they do, the charts only show the consent request and no data.
4. 04
   Open the report as a test viewer

   Use a second Google account you control, tagged on a few test rows. If a page shows empty charts for that account, the filter is doing its job.

A separate report for each client is the plain answer when your contract says the data stays apart. You copy the report, point the copy at a data source that only holds that one client’s rows, and share only that copy. It takes a bit more upkeep, but there is nothing to get wrong later, and if a staging sheet feeds it I build that the same way as in automating a Google Sheet with Apps Script, with one clean tab per client.

Does Gemini in Data Studio change any of this?

No, it does not, and it helps to know what Gemini actually does here, because the rename made the features harder to find. Google’s Gemini in Data Studio overview lists two features, and both are labelled Preview. Both need Gemini to be turned on for a Data Studio Pro subscription.

The first one writes calculated fields from a plain description. You edit the data source, add a calculated field, and click the Help me write icon, and you need the Editor role to do it. The second sends your report charts into Google Slides as images with a short text summary of each, and that one works with either a Viewer or Editor role in Data Studio.

Conversational Analytics, which lets you chat with your data, is a separate feature. Google’s Conversational Analytics overview says the new experience is available to all users and works with BigQuery data agents. It also warns that Gemini can produce output that seems plausible but is factually incorrect, so you should validate all of it yourself.

None of these AI features is a permission setting, and each one runs inside a role you have already given someone. If Gemini drafts a formula for you, you still check it before a client sees it, the same way I check AI formulas in Sheets in the Google Sheets AI functions guide, and the sharing question is still answered by the data source.

Which setting should I use for a client dashboard?

Start by looking at what you are trying to protect, not at which button is the quickest to click. If you are hiding drafts, old layouts or your own working notes, hiding works well and keeps those pages out of the client’s PDF too. But if a hidden page holds another client’s numbers, hiding is the wrong tool, however neat the menu looks.

For freelance reporting my recommendation is straightforward: one report per client, view access only, download and copy turned off where the client does not need them, and hidden pages only for your own drafts. If a team inside one company needs different views of the same numbers, filter by email is the better fit, because you manage one report while each person still only gets their own rows.

Whichever method you pick, open the report once as someone who should not see everything before you send the link. If you also build a Power BI version for senior managers, the same question applies there, and I explain how I scope that in building a Power BI executive dashboard. In Power BI there is one more door to check, because viewers can now export a visual to Excel from the Power BI phone app.