How can I convert an MDB (Access) file to MySQL (or plain SQL file)?

Is it possible to create a Dump of SQL commands from a Microsoft Access database? I hope to convert this MDB file into a MySQL database for importing so I don't have to go through the CSV step.

I would expect even an MSSQL dump file to still contain workable SQL commands, but I know nothing of MSSQL, please let me know.

You want to convert mdb to mysql (direct transfer to mysql or mysql dump)?

Try a software called Access to MySQL.

> Access to MySQL is a small program that will convert Microsoft Access Databases to MySQL. >

• Wizard interface.
• Transfer data directly from one server to another.
• Create a dump file.
• Select tables to transfer.
• Select fields to transfer.
• Transfer password protected databases.
• Supports both shared security and user-level security.
• Optional transfer of indexes.
• Optional transfer of records.
• Optional transfer of default values in field definitions.
• Identifies and transfers auto number field types.
• Command line interface.
• Easy install, uninstall and upgrade.

See the aforementioned link for a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots.

If you have access to a linux box with mdbtools installed, you can use this Bash shell script (save as mdbconvert.sh):

#!/bin/bash

TABLES=$(mdb-tables -1 $1)

MUSER="root"
MPASS="yourpassword"
MDB="$2"

MYSQL=$(which mysql)

for t in $TABLES
do
	$MYSQL -u $MUSER -p$MPASS $MDB -e "DROP TABLE IF EXISTS $t"
done

mdb-schema $1 mysql | $MYSQL -u $MUSER -p$MPASS $MDB

for t in $TABLES
do
	mdb-export -D '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S' -I mysql $1 $t | $MYSQL -u $MUSER -p$MPASS $MDB
done

To invoke it simply call it like this:

./mdbconvert.sh accessfile.mdb mysqldatabasename

It will import all tables and all data.

I modified the script by Nicolay77 to output the database to stdout (the usual way of unix scripts) so that I could output the data to text file or pipe it to any program I want. The resulting script is a bit simpler and works well.

Some examples:

./mdb_to_mysql.sh database.mdb > data.sql

./mdb_to_mysql.sh database.mdb | mysql destination-db -u user -p

Here is the modified script (save to mdb_to_mysql.sh)

#!/bin/bash
TABLES=$(mdb-tables -1 $1)

for t in $TABLES
do
    echo "DROP TABLE IF EXISTS $t;"
done

mdb-schema $1 mysql

for t in $TABLES
do
    mdb-export -D '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S' -I mysql $1 $t
done

OSX users can follow by Nicolay77 or mikkom that uses the mdbtools utility. You can install it via Homebrew. Just have your homebrew installed and then go

$ brew install mdbtools

Then create one of the scripts described by the guys and use it. I've used mikkom's one, converted all my mdb files into sql.

$ ./to_mysql.sh myfile.mdb > myfile.sql

(which btw contains more than 1 table)