Introduction to saved queries

This document provides an introduction to saved queries and classic saved queries in BigQuery.

Saved queries

This document provides an introduction to saved queries in BigQuery. You can use saved queries to create and manage SQL scripts. Saved queries improve collaboration and query management with the following options:

• Share queries with specific users and groups by using Identity and Access Management (IAM).
• Review the query version history.
• Revert to or branch from previous versions of the query.

Saved queries save both the query text and the query settings.

Saved queries are BigQuery Studio code assets powered by Dataform. Notebooks are also code assets. All code assets are stored in a default region. Updating the default region changes the region for all code assets created after that point.

Saved query capabilities are available only in the Google Cloud console.

Saved query security

You control access to saved queries by using Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles. For more information, see Grant access to saved queries.

Supported regions

BigQuery Studio lets you save, share, and manage saved queries. The following table lists the regions where BigQuery Studio is available:

	Region description	Region name	Details
Africa
	Johannesburg	africa-south1
Americas
	Columbus	us-east5
	Dallas	us-south1	Low CO2
	Iowa	us-central1	Low CO2
	Los Angeles	us-west2
	Las Vegas	us-west4
	Montréal	northamerica-northeast1	Low CO2
	N. Virginia	us-east4
	Oregon	us-west1	Low CO2
	São Paulo	southamerica-east1	Low CO2
	South Carolina	us-east1
Asia Pacific
	Hong Kong	asia-east2
	Jakarta	asia-southeast2
	Mumbai	asia-south1
	Seoul	asia-northeast3
	Singapore	asia-southeast1
	Sydney	australia-southeast1
	Taiwan	asia-east1
	Tokyo	asia-northeast1
Europe
	Belgium	europe-west1	Low CO2
	Frankfurt	europe-west3	Low CO2
	London	europe-west2	Low CO2
	Madrid	europe-southwest1	Low CO2
	Netherlands	europe-west4	Low CO2
	Turin	europe-west12
	Zürich	europe-west6	Low CO2
Middle East
	Doha	me-central1
	Dammam	me-central2

Quotas and limits

For more information, see Saved query quotas and limits.

Limitations

Saved queries have the following limitations:

• You can grant public access to saved queries only to the allAuthenticatedUsers principal. You can't grant access to saved queries to the allUsers principal.
• If your Google Cloud project contains more than 2500 classic saved queries, you can't use batch migration (Preview) to migrate classic saved queries to saved queries.

Classic saved queries

Deprecated: Saved queries, available in the BigQuery Studio preview, will fully replace classic saved queries by March 2025. For more information, see Deprecation of classic saved queries. To learn how to migrate to saved queries, see Migrate classic saved queries.

Classic saved queries are an earlier way of saving and sharing SQL queries. Classic saved queries provide the query text, and the only query setting retained by a classic saved query is the SQL version. This setting governs whether the query uses legacy SQL or GoogleSQL. To query the data, users must have access to the data that the saved query accesses. For more information, see Grant access to saved queries.

Note: If you have not enabled BigQuery Studio, classic saved queries appear in the Saved queries (NUMBER) folder of the Explorer pane instead of the (Classic) Queries folder.

There are 3 types of classic saved queries:

• Personal. Personal classic saved queries are visible only to the user who creates them. They are identified with the icon.
• Project-level. Project-level saved queries are visible to principals that have the required permissions. They are identified with the icon.
• Public. Public classic saved queries are visible to anyone with a link to the query. They are identified with the icon.

You can migrate classic saved queries to saved queries to take advantage of the new capabilities, or continue to maintain them as classic saved queries until 2025.

The classic saved query feature is available only in the Google Cloud console.

Deprecation of classic saved queries

By March 2025, the saved queries feature of BigQuery Studio will replace classic saved queries. To edit existing classic saved queries after 2024, you must migrate classic queries to BigQuery Studio saved queries.

If users, including yourself, have personal queries with information that shouldn't be made available to others with access to data in the project, then the query's owner must delete the queries or the information by March 2025.

To support this transition, the following BigQuery IAM roles were updated in February 2024:

• BigQuery Admin (roles/bigquery.admin) will get Dataform Admin (roles/dataform.admin) permissions.

• BigQuery Job User (roles/bigquery.jobUser) will get the following permissions:

  • dataform.locations.get
  • dataform.locations.list
  • dataform.repositories.create
  • dataform.repositories.list

• BigQuery User (roles/bigquery.user) will get the following permissions:

  • dataform.locations.get
  • dataform.locations.list
  • dataform.repositories.create
  • dataform.repositories.list

To let users without the BigQuery Admin, BigQuery Job User, or BigQuery User roles use saved queries, grant them the required permissions in IAM.

Custom roles won't be automatically updated. To update a custom role with the required permissions, see Edit an existing custom role.

What's next

• To learn how to create saved queries, see Create saved queries.
• To learn how to manage saved queries, see Manage saved queries.