Many database users want to know how to migrate from MS Access to MySQL server. If you are among them, then first of all you should decide if you really need to do that. There are certain benefits of using MySQL instead of Access database. The benefits are multi-user access, high performance speed, cross-platforming, strong security and others. So, if you are creating a more complex system for multiple users, you should definitely consider transfer the data from Access to MySQL.

But, if this is not your case and if MS Access data is used by one user and if you just copy the data file to another machine, when you need to move it, then you will not really benefit from using MySQL.

If you still want to move MS Access data to MySQL, there is a standard way to do it. MS Access is able to export the tables to different formats including ODBC. Using this Access feature you can export a table to MySQL with the help of Connector/ODBC driver offered by MySQL AB. In order to perform this, you should right-click on the table and choose the Export option. Follow just a few steps and your data will be moved to MySQL.

The above method should be enough for you if you have a small database and it doesn’t include complex structure. If not, you should know that MS Access will not perform migration of index information with the data. After exporting your tables, you will have to build indexes on your tables manually. There are also some differences in types of data between Access and MySQL. For example, there is no currency data type in MySQL. Instead, there is another column created for the same purpose, which is a Decimal (19,4) column. Access database supports Unicode by default but MySQL doesn’t bind field types and character sets so tightly. Instead, MySQL allows each text field to be linked to any character sets as well as Unicode. And again you will have to assign it manually if you need to set Unicode in the MySQL database.

Another solution to the migration issue is to use a special third-party application to perform it for you. There are special Access-to-MySQL converters, which provide database users with fast, easy and accurate solution for the database conversion problem. Such programs are easy to use and Access-to-MySQL conversion program provide wide range of capabilities for exporting large and complicated MS Access databases. And at the same time, the results of migrated data are accurate because the application performs all necessary data transformations and supports all MS Access attributes and types, handles all table relationships and other indexes and deals with all multibyte character sets and more. If you don’t know the destination of MySQL server or don’t have access to it, or if you need more control over the process of migration, you can use such third-party application for it to export all data files for you from Access to MySQL.

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