Reports snapshot, date ranges and comparisons

The Reports section (left nav) opens on the Reports snapshot, a dashboard of cards summarising users, sessions, top channels, pages, key events and automated Insights (anomalies and trends GA4 detected). Below it sits Realtime, and then collections: Life cycle (Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization, Retention), User (User attributes, Tech) and, for newer properties, business-objective collections such as Generate leads or Drive online sales. Each collection has overview reports made of cards and detail reports with a chart plus a table.

Controls at the top apply to every report:

• Date range: presets or custom; tick Compare to add a previous period and get % change columns. Data for today is partial, and the last 24 to 48 hours can still change.
• Comparisons: up to five side-by-side conditions, e.g. Device category = mobile vs desktop, or Country = Germany. Comparisons are applied to the whole report and survive navigation between reports, but not reload.
• Report filter (Add filter in the table toolbar): a temporary dimension filter on this report only; you cannot save it, although an editor can bake a filter into a custom report.
• Secondary dimension (+ next to the primary dimension in a table) adds a second breakdown column.
• The search box above tables filters rows by text.

Table rows are capped (usually 10 to 250 visible) and the table only lists the top rows; use Explore for the long tail. The Share button exports a report as PDF or CSV or creates a share link.

Remember that standard reports are unsampled and show all time, but can be subject to thresholding when Google signals or demographics are involved.