How to Change Excel Data Source Path in Power BI (Fix Broken Links) Easily 2026

Excel-based data sources in Power BI reference an exact file path recorded at the moment you first connected — something like c:\users\pc\downloads\sample.csv. Move that file to a different folder, rename it, or push it to a shared drive, and Power BI has no way to follow it; the connection just stops resolving. This is the same reason a report can look completely fine when you open it and only fail the moment you try to refresh.

A report with a broken source usually still renders its last successful data pull, so tables and pie charts like the ones here keep showing numbers even though the connection underneath them is dead. The tell is that a manual refresh either errors out or silently does nothing — the sale figures and month breakdowns stay frozen at whatever they were the last time the file was reachable, which is easy to miss if nobody's actively watching for it.

From the ribbon, go to File > Options and settings > Data source settings, which opens a dialog listing every source the current report has ever connected to — you can see the full mix here, from local downloads folders and CSV files to a OneDrive-hosted financial workbook and a web API endpoint. Each row is a separate connection, so scan for the specific Excel file causing the error rather than assuming it's the first one in the list.

Select the broken entry and click Change Source at the bottom of the dialog. This opens a file browser where you navigate to wherever the Excel file actually lives now — a different folder, a renamed file, or a shared drive it got moved to. Confirm the selection and Power BI rewrites its stored path to match, which is the entire fix; nothing else about the report's structure changes.

After changing the source, trigger a manual refresh from the Home ribbon and watch for errors. If the file structure changed along with its location — different column names or a renamed sheet — you may also need to revisit the query in Power Query Editor, but a straightforward move or rename typically resolves the moment the refresh completes cleanly.

A local downloads folder is the single most common source of these errors, since it's exactly where files get reorganized, renamed, or cleaned out without anyone thinking about the report depending on them. Moving the source Excel file to a stable, shared location like OneDrive or SharePoint — the way the financial sample workbook in the settings list already was — means the path stays constant even as people on the team come and go.