Reference

MDB (Access)

MDB is the legacy Microsoft Access database format used before Access 2007, built on the Jet engine. A .mdb holds a full desktop database in one file and was replaced by the newer ACCDB format.

Files & formatsWindowsGeneral

MDB (Access)

Also known as: .mdb file, Microsoft Access MDB, Jet database

MDB is the legacy Microsoft Access database format used before Access 2007, built on the Jet engine. A .mdb holds a full desktop database in one file and was replaced by the newer ACCDB format.

Legacy Microsoft Access (Jet) database format
Replaced by ACCDB in Access 2007
Convert to ACCDB or export tables to CSV

What MDB is

MDB was Access’s file format for years, storing tables, queries, forms, and reports together in a single .mdb on the Jet database engine. Plenty of older business databases still exist in this format.

Access 2007 introduced ACCDB as the replacement, with newer capabilities. MDB remains readable by Access for backward compatibility, but it is the older standard.

Opening and converting MDB

Access opens .mdb files, and can convert them to ACCDB. To use the data elsewhere, export tables to CSV or import them into another database.

MDB files are sized by their data, not media, so they are usually modest. Convert old .mdb databases to ACCDB or CSV to keep them usable on current tools.

Related terms

Keep reading the reference.

Files & formatsACCDB (Access)ACCDB is the database file format Microsoft Access has used since Access 2007. A single .accdb holds an entire desktop database — tables, queries, forms, and reports — replacing the older MDB format.WindowsGeneral Files & formatsCSVCSV (comma-separated values) is a plain-text format that stores tabular data as rows of values separated by commas. It carries no formatting, formulas, or charts, which makes CSV files tiny and universally readable across apps and programming languages.General Files & formatsSQLiteSQLite is a self-contained database that stores an entire database — tables, indexes, and data — in a single file, typically ending in .sqlite, .sqlite3, or .db. Countless apps embed it to hold their data locally, which is why a SQLite file is often where an app’s settings, history, and content live.General Web & SEOStructured data (schema markup)Structured data is machine-readable code, usually written in JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary, that labels what a page is about — an article, product, recipe, or FAQ. Search engines use it to understand content and to power rich results like star ratings and FAQ dropdowns.General