hidden lets you hide an Explore from the Explore menu. By default, hidden is off and the Explore will be displayed.
Examples
Hide the Order Explore from the Explore menu:
explore: order {
hidden: yes
}
Common challenges
hidden does not hide LookML or prevent Explore access via the URL
Depending upon permissions, some business users are able to see LookML. Even if an Explore is hidden from the Explore menu, such business users can see its existence in the LookML.
A business user could also gain access to the Explore if they were savvy enough to manually modify the URL.
For these reasons, hidden is not meant as a security feature, but rather as a presentation feature.
Things to know
hidden is useful for dashboard-only Explores
The most common use case for hidden is to create Explores that are only used to populate specific dashboard tiles, but are uninteresting for exploration.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14 UTC."],[],[],null,["# hidden (for Explores)\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n\u003e This page refers to the `hidden` parameter that is part of an [Explore](/looker/docs/2512/reference/param-explore-explore).\n\u003e\n\u003e `hidden` can also be used as part of a field, described on the [`hidden` (for fields)](/looker/docs/2512/reference/param-field-hidden) parameter documentation page.\n\nUsage\n-----\n\n```\nexplore: explore_name {\n hidden: yes\n}\n```\n\nDefinition\n----------\n\n`hidden` lets you hide an [Explore](/looker/docs/2512/reference/param-explore-explore) from the Explore menu. By default, `hidden` is off and the Explore will be displayed.\n\nExamples\n--------\n\nHide the **Order** Explore from the Explore menu: \n\n explore: order {\n hidden: yes\n }\n\nCommon challenges\n-----------------\n\n### `hidden` does not hide LookML or prevent Explore access via the URL\n\nDepending upon permissions, some business users are able to see LookML. Even if an Explore is hidden from the Explore menu, such business users can see its existence in the LookML.\n\nA business user could also gain access to the Explore if they were savvy enough to manually modify the URL.\n\nFor these reasons, `hidden` is not meant as a security feature, but rather as a presentation feature.\n\nThings to know\n--------------\n\n### `hidden` is useful for dashboard-only Explores\n\nThe most common use case for `hidden` is to create Explores that are only used to populate specific dashboard tiles, but are uninteresting for exploration."]]
