MDB File Viewer How to Open an MDB File on a Mac
How to Open an MDB File on a Mac
macOS has no built-in way to open a Microsoft Access database. Here are the four real options and what each one costs.
Why the file will not open
.mdb is the Microsoft Access database format. One file holds every table in the database, stored in a layout that only Access and a handful of compatible tools can read.
Microsoft has never released Access for macOS. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook all have Mac versions. Access does not. So a .mdb file on a Mac has nothing to open it with, and double-clicking gets you a Finder dialog asking which application to try.
Option 1: run Windows
Parallels, VMware Fusion or Boot Camp on an Intel Mac, plus a Windows licence, plus Access itself. This works and gives you the real thing, including forms and queries.
It costs roughly $130 a year for Parallels and a Microsoft 365 plan that includes Access, and an afternoon of setup. Worth it if you maintain Access databases. Heavy if you have one file and one question.
Option 2: upload it to a web converter
Type “mdb to csv” into a search engine and the first page is web converters. Drag the file in, wait, download a zip.
Check what is in the database before you do this. The file is on someone else’s server from the moment you upload it, and their retention policy is whatever their terms say it is. Most .mdb files that reach a Mac arrived from a client, an employer or a public body, and those are the files you cannot upload.
Option 3: the command line
mdbtools is a free open-source package that reads Access databases. Install it with Homebrew and export a table:
brew install mdbtools
mdb-tables -1 database.mdb
mdb-export database.mdb TableName > TableName.csv
Free, offline, and fine if you are comfortable in a terminal. It does not handle encrypted .accdb files, and you get no view of the database before you start guessing table names.
Option 4: a Mac app
Smart MDB Exporter opens the file on your Mac, lists every table with its row and column counts, and writes the tables to CSV or SQLite. Encrypted .accdb files open with their password. A folder of databases exports in one run.
A one-time purchase with no subscription, and the database is opened read-only so the original cannot be damaged.
Table view is a work in progress. The app reads the database and gets the data out; browsing rows in place is the next thing being built.
Which one to pick
| You maintain Access databases | Run Windows. You need the real Access. |
|---|---|
| You live in a terminal | mdbtools, unless the file is encrypted. |
| The data is yours and trivial | A web converter is fine. |
| The data belongs to someone else | Keep it on your machine. |
Questions
- Can Excel open a .mdb file?
- Excel on Windows can pull tables out of an Access database through Get Data. Excel for Mac cannot: the Access database engine it relies on is Windows-only. On a Mac you need to convert the tables to CSV first, then open those in Excel.
- Can Numbers open a .mdb file?
- No. Numbers reads CSV, TSV and Excel files. Convert the Access tables to CSV first and Numbers will open them.
- Is it safe to use an online MDB converter?
- It depends entirely on what is in the database. Uploading a personal project is one thing. Uploading a client list, a patient register or an employer's records to a third-party server is usually a breach of whatever agreement covers that data, and you cannot undo it once the file is sent.