How to Query Today's GA4 Data in BigQuery
Last updated August 29, 2026 · By the SaturnSQL team
Daily events_ tables arrive with up to a day's delay. For today, enable the streaming export and query events_intraday_YYYYMMDD, which fills continuously and is replaced by the finalized daily table.
SELECT event_name, COUNT(*) AS events
FROM `myproject.analytics_123456789.events_intraday_20260829`
GROUP BY event_name
ORDER BY events DESC;History plus today in one query
The wildcard events_* matches the intraday tables too (their suffix starts with 'intraday_'), so a plain BETWEEN filter on dates silently excludes today. Add the intraday suffix explicitly.
SELECT event_date, COUNT(*) AS events
FROM `myproject.analytics_123456789.events_*`
WHERE _TABLE_SUFFIX BETWEEN '20260822' AND '20260828'
OR _TABLE_SUFFIX = CONCAT('intraday_',
FORMAT_DATE('%Y%m%d', CURRENT_DATE()))
GROUP BY event_date
ORDER BY event_date;What intraday does and doesn't give you
Streaming export is a checkbox on the BigQuery link and lands events within minutes. The intraday table is provisional: when the daily table for that date is finalized, the intraday table is deleted, and some fields are only fully populated in the daily version. Build dashboards on the daily tables and treat intraday as a live tail.
Run this in SaturnSQL
SaturnSQL is a browser-based SQL editor for teams: shared query library, schema-aware autocomplete, and scheduled exports to Google Sheets and Slack.
Try it free