How to open an MDB or ACCDB file
An .mdb or .accdb file is a Microsoft Access database: inside are several tables and often queries, forms and reports too. Someone sent you such a database and you do not have Access. Here is what can open it and what you can see in it without Access.
Free for personal use. The database is not uploaded to a server — parsing happens in the browser. Windows version — 3.5 MB, no installation: details. Organizations: license.
The kinds of Access databases
| File | Version | Peculiarity |
|---|---|---|
.mdb | Access 97 | text in a Windows code page — hence garbled text in programs that guess wrong |
.mdb | Access 2000–2003 | Unicode text; the most common case in older business software |
.accdb | Access 2007–2019 | the newer format; a password encrypts the whole file |
.mde, .accde | a "compiled" database | the form code is locked, the tables are ordinary |
.ldb, .laccdb | a lock file | no data; it appears while the database is open |
All versions begin with the signature Standard Jet DB or Standard ACE DB — the app recognises a database by it, so the extension does not matter.
What can open it
- Microsoft Access — opens everything, but it is not included in every Office edition and costs money.
- Access Runtime — free, but it only shows the forms of a finished application. You will not see the tables unless the author of the database made a form for them.
- LibreOffice Base, DBeaver — they open it, but you have to install them, and DBeaver also needs a driver configured.
- The browser. Drag the database into the app window and the largest table opens. The others can be chosen in the file parsing panel or opened all at once, one tab per table. After that you get filters, search, grouping, a pivot table and export to Excel.
If you see garbled text
This is almost always an Access 97 database. The text in it is stored not as Unicode but in a Windows code page, and the database header often names that code page wrongly — for example it says Western European 1252 while the text is really in a Cyrillic, Greek or Central European code page. The app does not trust the header and detects the encoding from the text itself. If it still guesses wrong, change the encoding on the bar above the table — the whole database, including table and column names, is re-read.
If the database has a password
In Access 97–2003 databases the password only forbids opening the database in Access itself and does not encrypt the data: such databases can be opened. The "encode database" option is not a password either, and it can be read.
In an .accdb (Access 2007 and newer) the password encrypts the whole file. Such a database cannot be opened by anything without the password, and with the password only by Access: File → Info → Decrypt Database, after which the file opens anywhere.
FAQ
Where are the queries, forms and reports?
Queries are listed in the file parsing panel but not executed: they are text in the Access query language. Forms and reports are the program's interface and hold no data. All the data is in the tables.
Can I change data in the database?
No, Access databases are opened for viewing. If something needs fixing, export the table to Excel, DBF or SQLite and edit it there.
Will a database of hundreds of megabytes open?
Yes. A table is read straight from the file, page by page, and rows are parsed as you scroll.
Free for personal use. Your file is not uploaded to a server. Windows version — 3.5 MB, no installation: details. Organizations: license.