Power BI Credentials Error connecting to Microsoft 365 services

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Power BI Credentials Error connecting to Microsoft 365 services
When connecting to Microsoft 365 services like SharePoint or OneDrive there can be an irritating error message with credentials. In this blog we will cover several different things to try to solve this issue.

Posted by Sam Lowrie on 04 November 2025

In this blog

Access denied!
Clearing old credentials
No authentication occurring
Editing the SharePoint link
Use the file path instead

Access denied!

One issue that rears its ugly head from time to time in Power BI is a credentials error when connecting to Microsoft 365 data sources.

For this example, I’m going to use the Web connector to pull data from SharePoint. To do this, from the Power BI ribbon choose Home | New Source | Web.

The Web connector accepts SharePoint links.

To find the file URL, go to the file in SharePoint, right-click, and choose Copy link.

This generates a link to share the file.

Paste the link into your Web connector and go to the next stage of the import process.

Power BI will open the authentication window. When we choose Organizational account sadly, you may see this error:

Error when connecting to Microsoft 365 services from Power BI

Computer says no.

So how do we get around this? Well, there are several methods to try.

Clearing old credentials

Power BI could be being lazy and using old saved credentials that have since changed.

To view existing credentials, go to Home | Transform Data | Data source settings.

There are two places you may need to delete the link from: Data sources in current file and Global permissions.

Clearing the permissions saved in Power BI

Saved information may be causing confusion, especially if you use multiple accounts!

No authentication occurring

Another culprit is Power BI not initiating the authentication check at all.

From the File menu click Options and Settings, then go to Options | Security | Authentication Browser and toggle Use my default browser.