TL;DR: Delete the cache.abf file in a PBIP's semantic model folder to strip out the data. The project gets much smaller, and it publishes much faster.
Note: This tip requires saving as a Power BI project (PBIP), not a PBIX. If you're doing agentic development, you already are.
In a PBIP, nearly all the disk space sits in one file: <name>.SemanticModel\.pbi\cache.abf. Most everything else is small text files.
Microsoft's documentation describes cache.abf as an Analysis Services backup file "containing a local cached copy of the model and data when it was last edited." The part that makes this tip work: "Power BI Desktop can open a project without a cache.abf file. In that case, it opens the report connected to a model with its entire definition but without data." The model metadata survives, but the data goes.
You don't even need to close the report before deleting cache.abf because Power BI Desktop doesn't lock it.
Two times this helps:
- Publishing a large model you'll refresh in the service anyway. Publishing from Power BI Desktop uploads the local data cache along with the model. Delete cache.abf, save, and publish, then refresh in the service. Uploading empty tables is a lot faster than uploading all the data.
- Saving space in archive/backup folders. If you keep old copies of PBIPs, search the folder in File Explorer for
cache.abfand delete the results. Git already ignores cache.abf by default, so this just brings your other copies in line.
