How to query an Access database without SQL

The usual way

To get an answer from Access today, someone opens the query designer, adds tables, drags joins, sets criteria, and runs it. For anything harder, such as totals by month or customers with no orders since March, they write SQL by hand.

Access SQL has its own rules. Dates go between # signs. Wildcards are * and ?, not %. TOP replaces LIMIT. Small mistakes mean an error or, worse, a wrong number.

The plain-English way

With DatabaseAI you open your Access file and type the question the way you would say it. “Total hours by employee this month.” “Top 10 customers by invoice amount in 2026.” “Who hasn’t ordered since March?”

The app writes an Access SQL SELECT query using your real table and column names, runs it on your PC, and shows the answer. You can see the query it ran if you want to check it.

Tables, charts, and Excel

Answers come back as a short sentence, a table, or a chart. Ask for a bar, line, area, pie, or scatter chart and the app picks the right columns.

Any table can be downloaded as an Excel workbook, ready to email. The Access file itself stays where it is.

Safe by design

DatabaseAI opens the database read-only and only runs SELECT queries. Update, delete, insert, and make-table queries are blocked. A question can never change your data.

What you need

A Windows PC with your .accdb or .mdb file and the Microsoft Access database engine (ACE) driver, which most Access installs already have. A new account includes a three-day trial, then $30 a month per user or $270 a year per user.