Google Slides Chart Not Updating From Sheets? Causes and Fixes
Slides never updates a linked chart on its own. Someone has to press Update, and if the button is missing, the chart is either current or was never linked.
A Google Slides chart does not update on its own. After the Sheet changes, you have to click Update on the chart or use Tools → Linked objects → Update all. Google's help page gives two reasons for a missing Update button: the chart is already current, or it is not linked. Start by working out which, then go down the list below.
First: is the chart actually linked?
Click the chart. A linked chart has a link control and menu options for the source. An image or an unlinked chart has neither, and no fix will make it update, so skip to re-importing it.
Charts arrive unlinked for two common reasons: someone unticked Link to spreadsheet when importing, or the slide was built by pasting from another deck or as a picture.
Causes, most likely first
1. Nobody pressed Update
This is the answer most of the time. Open Tools → Linked objects for a list of every linked object in the deck, and click Update all at the bottom.
2. The chart in Sheets did not change
Slides copies the chart from Sheets, not the data. If you added rows below the chart's data range, the chart in Sheets looks the same, so the slide does too, and no Update button appears. Open the Sheet, double-click the chart and check Data range in the Chart editor. This is the cause I would suspect when "the data is definitely there". The fix that prevents it is to set the range on whole columns such as A:C, or to keep the chart on a summary tab with a fixed shape.
3. The page has not noticed yet
If the Sheet changed and no button appears, reload the presentation. Long-open tabs can miss it.
4. The source chart was replaced
A link follows that specific chart. If someone deleted it and made a similar one, or moved work to a copy of the spreadsheet, the slide has nothing to follow. It keeps the last picture, and it looks fine. Re-import from the current chart.
5. Access to the Sheet changed
Google does not spell out which permissions updating needs. If Update fails for one person and works for another, the practical first check is whether that person can edit the deck and open the source spreadsheet.
6. Your style changes keep disappearing
This one looks like the opposite problem. Google says updating lets the original override your changes in the presentation, so colors set on the slide go back each time. Make style changes in Sheets.
7. A linked table has outgrown the limit
Tables over 400 cells paste unlinked, and a linked table cannot grow past 400 cells. This looks like a table that has stopped following its source.
The part links do not cover
A linked chart updates and the text box beside it does not. So after a clean Update all, you can have a June chart under a title reading Sales fell in May. That deck will pass a quick review, because the chart has visibly changed and the slide looks handled. The direction of the error matters too: it is the words, which is what people quote, that stay behind.
A deck nobody opens is also a deck nobody updates. If a colleague has the link bookmarked, they will read whatever was last saved, with nothing to tell them it is old. I put a data as of date on the first slide of anything shared this way.
Refresh every chart with a short script
If you are tired of remembering, Apps Script can do it. In the deck, go to Extensions → Apps Script and paste this:
function refreshCharts() {
SlidesApp.getActivePresentation().getSlides().forEach(function (slide) {
slide.getSheetsCharts().forEach(function (chart) {
chart.refresh();
});
});
}SheetsChart.refresh() replaces each chart with the latest version from Sheets and leaves it alone if it is already current. Run it once and approve the permissions. Then add a time-driven trigger under Triggers to run it, for instance, every Monday morning.
Two limits: it covers linked charts only, so linked tables still need Update all, and it does nothing for the sentences. Also note that a scheduled update changes a deck that people might be reading, so the numbers can move between one person's view and the next. For a board deck, I would update by hand and freeze it.
The linked chart is a good idea with a poor failure mode. It does not say it is out of date. Over the years, the question I came to ask about any shared deck was not whether its charts were linked but who was responsible for pressing the button, and on what day. In most companies the answer was the person who built it, who had often moved on to something else. A chart that shows a confident, well-formatted, four-month-old number does more harm than an empty box, because an empty box gets someone's attention.
Charts that keep their question
Quiriz for Google Slides doesn't link to a Sheets chart. Ask a question in the sidebar, such as net sales by month this year, and it places the chart on the slide, with the question stored alongside it. Refresh all then asks every question again and replaces each object where it sits, with the takeaways rewritten from the new figures, so the words and the chart come from the same reading of the data.
What you give up. Quiriz charts in Slides are images. You restyle them by asking, not by clicking through the Chart editor. Refresh is something you press rather than a schedule, and the data has to be in Quiriz: a connected source, an imported file, or a Sheet on a scheduled refresh. If you have one chart in one deck, the Update button is all you need.
Decks that bring their own numbers current
Try the questions on sample company data with no signup, then add the Slides add-on when you have a deck to refresh.
Try Quiriz free →