[GA4] Filter out developer traffic

You can filter out activity from internal developers who use debug mode so developers can continue to use DebugView to troubleshoot issues while their activity doesn't appear in your reports.

If you are looking to filter out website activity from an IP address or a range of IP addresses, see Filter out internal traffic.

You can create up to 10 data filters per property.

Warning: Once you apply a data filter, the effect on the data is permanent. For example, if you apply an exclude data filter, the excluded data is never processed and will never be available in Analytics. If you want to hide data from certain reports without permanently filtering out the data, use report filters instead.

Filter out developer traffic

Before you begin

You need the Editor role at the property level to create, edit, and delete filters.

Create the data filter

1. In Admin, under Data collection and modification, click Data filters.
2. Click Create Filter.
3. Choose Developer Traffic.
4. Enter a name for the data filter. The name must:
   • be unique among data filters in the same property
   • begin with a unicode letter
   • contain only unicode letters and numbers, underscores, and spaces
   • contain up to 40 characters
5. Choose Exclude to filter out developer traffic.
6. Choose from the following filter states:
   • Testing: Analytics identifies matching data with the Test data filter name dimension
   • Active: Analytics applies the data filter to incoming data and makes permanent changes
   • Inactive: Analytics isn't evaluating the filter
   Note: Your data that satisfies a test data filter is assigned to the Test data filter name dimension and given a value of the filter name. That data is available throughout Analytics in dimension pickers (for example, in your reports and explorations) so you can validate your data filters before you activate them. Learn more
7. Click Create.

Testing a data filter

Testing a data filter ensures it's filtering out developer traffic successfully. Filtered developer traffic is added to the "Test data filter name" dimension with the filter name as the value.

To find events triggered by a filtered developer, you can build a free-form exploration with these settings:

• Technique: Free form
• Rows: Test data filter name, Event name
• Values: Event count
• Filter: "Test data filter name contains [the name of your data filter]"

A data filter can take between 24 - 36 hours to apply. Check back later if no value is assigned.

Result

When you activate the data filter, Google Analytics will filter out any data collected from users when debug mode is enabled. This will allow you to test in your property without disrupting the data in your reports.