It depends on the dashboard, but most will launch new searches every interval.  An exception is for dashboard panels that use the loadjob command.  Yes, it's a resource consumption and (IMO) auto-refresh dashboards should be discouraged. Try this search for locating dashboards that use auto-refresh: | rest /servicesNS/-/-/data/ui/views | search eai:data="*<refresh>*" | rex field=eai:data max_match=0 "\s<refresh>(?<refresh>\w+)" | eval refresh=mvdedup(refresh) | table title author eai:acl.app eai:acl.owner refresh description ... View more