Forum Discussion
When a pbix file is published, its size increases.
Hi Zarina_Hajiyeva ,
Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum.
To fix your PBIX file size issue, try deleting the current 1962 MB semantic model from the Power BI Service instead of overwriting it.
Before republishing, open your PBIX file in Power BI Desktop and clear any cached data by going to File - Options and Settings - Options - Data Load and selecting Clear Cache. Saving the PBIX file with a new name also helps prevent metadata issues.
Publish the PBIX as a new dataset from Power BI Desktop there should be no prompt to replace an existing one. After publishing, check the dataset size in System storage to confirm it matches your model’s actual size. This method ensures accurate file size and eliminates unnecessary metadata from previous versions.
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Best Regards,
Sreeteja.
Community Support Team
Hi Anonymous and Akash_Varuna
I am also having the same issue after publishing dataset on service.
1. Replace the existing dataset. Showing increased dataset size (almost 3 times)
2. Deleted the exitsing dataset, clear cache from desktop, publised again. Same issue, Showing increased dataset size (almost 3 times)
3. Published same dataset in other tenant to validate, showing correct dataset size.
So seems, it is environment specific, but not sure how to resolve this issue.
Any help/guidence here will be highly appriciated.
Thanks,
Sunil
Hi sunil_tak3 ,
Thanks for reaching out to Community Forum.The difference in size between a PBIX file and the dataset in Power BI Service is expected, as the Service uses the VertiPaq in-memory engine, where the model size includes not just compressed data but also metadata and internal structures, so it won’t exactly match the PBIX size. To reduce dataset size, Microsoft recommends optimizing the model by removing unnecessary columns, lowering data cardinality, disabling Auto Date/Time if not needed, and following efficient data modeling practices, as these directly impact memory usage. While this explains the general behavior, the variation across tenants suggests further validation may be needed through Microsoft support to check environment-specific factors.
Refer these docs :
https://learn.microsoft.com/power-bi/enterprise/service-premium-capacity-manage
https://learn.microsoft.com/power-bi/guidance/import-modeling-data-reduction
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/transform-model/desktop-modeling-view
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/transform-model/desktop-auto-date-time
Thank you.