# ES|QL date histogram? **URL:** \ **Category:** Kibana\ **Tags:** search, esql\ **Created:** [October 27, 2025, 5:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/es-ql-date-histogram/383029 "2025-10-27T17:37:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kmp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kmp/32/5144_2.png) [@kmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kmp)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2025, 5:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/es-ql-date-histogram/383029/1 "2025-10-27T17:37:22Z")
I’m _really_ trying to start to use ES|QL… About six months ago, I generated some queries (saved search sessions) and was wondering why (unlike the Classic search) there was no date histogram displayed. I was playing around with another ES|QL query just now, and wanted to check out how to structure a WHERE clause and stumbled across this documentation section: [Analyze and Visualize Data](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/query-filter/languages/esql-kibana#esql-kibana-visualizations) and - wait, there’s a date histogram! I composed and ran a simple query and I see a histogram; my saved ES|QL query does not have one. My saved query has a `KEEP @timestamp` along with other fields (the query is “FROM | WHERE | LIMIT | KEEP”) and it appears the KEEP is what breaks the functionality to show the date histogram. This surprises me because I got the impression that ES|QL was supposed to provide all the logic for a query/report. I have updated my saved search session to use the ES|QL query without a `KEEP` and my formatting (i.e., fields to display) specified using the Result pane (choosing the “Toggle Column in Table” tick box for the fields) for the search. Now I have a date histogram but I’m wondering if this is as intended - or whether this is explained somewhere. I will say that I’d been so used to date histograms for situational awareness of documents from a query that I’d reserved trying ES|QL unless it seemed it might offer some advantage that outweighed this; now I expect I can make more use of ES|QL going forward, so this is good news. Maybe I had just missed it, but if this is new functionality (I’m on 9.2) then I’m very appreciative. ---
**Author:** ![Tortoise](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/tortoise/32/147587_2.png) [@Tortoise](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Tortoise)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 3:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/es-ql-date-histogram/383029/2 "2025-10-28T03:30:15Z")
Hello @kmp I found below documentation related to ES|QL date time functions if it can be useful : > **[ES|QL date-time functions | Reference](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/query-languages/esql/functions-operators/date-time-functions)** > > ES|QL supports these date-time functions: Thanks!! ---
**Author:** ![Stratoula\_Kalafateli](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/stratoula_kalafateli/32/70923_2.png) [@Stratoula\_Kalafateli](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Stratoula_Kalafateli)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 9:28am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/es-ql-date-histogram/383029/3 "2025-10-28T09:28:40Z")
Hey! Yes this is intended. When you are KEEPing specific fields, then you don’t have your entire dataset but only these specific fields. This is why we can’t draw a histogram at these cases. The same happens if you use STATS. So yes this is expected ---
**Author:** ![kmp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kmp/32/5144_2.png) [@kmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kmp)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 2:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/es-ql-date-histogram/383029/4 "2025-10-28T14:54:04Z")
Hi there, and thanks so much for your reply. I guess what I was getting at is that if I KEEP @timestamp, I’d have assumed that those fields and the timestamp would have been sufficient. That doesn’t make sense to me, but hopefully it will become clear in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Stratoula\_Kalafateli](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/stratoula_kalafateli/32/70923_2.png) [@Stratoula\_Kalafateli](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Stratoula_Kalafateli)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 3:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/es-ql-date-histogram/383029/5 "2025-10-28T15:32:44Z")
Keep has a different functionality. So if for example you keep one numeric and one string field ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/3/2/325861d1c9bfee6d31e2377c20f914d241c6e6ea.png) then you have a nice visualization depicting this information If you keep the @timestamp it wont display the histogram following the logic I mention above (stats and keep are rendering a different chart if possible). So trying to detect if the user kept a timestamp and only then display the histogram would require some complex calculations.