Every few months, someone online declares that MS Access is dead. It’s been happening since the early 2000s — and yet, here we are in 2026, and the software is not only still running in tens of thousands of organisations worldwide, but Microsoft is actively shipping new features for it.
So what’s the truth? Is Access a relic that professionals should quietly move away from, or is it still a legitimate, productive tool worth learning and building with?
This post is based on the Skill Header video Is MS Access Viable in 2025? — updated with current facts for 2026. We’ll work through the real history of Access, address the common doubts honestly, lay out what the tool is genuinely good for, acknowledge where it falls short, and help you decide whether it’s worth your time right now.
The Journey of MS Access — From 1992 to Today
To understand where Access stands today, it helps to know where it came from.
Microsoft Access first launched on November 13, 1992, at the COMDEX convention in Las Vegas — introduced by Bill Gates himself. It was Microsoft’s answer to the popular DOS-based databases of the era, like dBase and Paradox, and its core idea was simple: bring relational database management to non-programmers through a graphical interface anyone could use on Windows.
It was an immediate success. Within a few years it was bundled into Microsoft Office 95, and that move defined its trajectory — Access became the go-to database tool for millions of professionals who didn’t have the background or budget for enterprise database systems.
Over the following two decades, it evolved steadily:
- Access 97 became the definitive stable version that most early users remember
- Access 2007 introduced the ACCDB file format and the ribbon interface, bringing better support for attachments, multi-value fields, and SharePoint links
- Access 2010 and 2013 experimented with web apps and SharePoint hosting, allowing databases to be deployed as browser-accessible applications
- Access 2021 and Access 2024 brought refined features including an improved Add Tables pane, tab management improvements, hex colour support, and the Edge Browser control
Then came the moment that caused the most confusion. In 2017, Microsoft discontinued Access Web Apps — the cloud-hosted, browser-based version of Access that ran on SharePoint. This was widely misreported as Microsoft “killing Access,” and that misunderstanding has been fuelling rumours ever since. What Microsoft actually discontinued was a specific cloud product. The desktop application continued — and continues today.
As of 2026, Microsoft Access is included in Office LTSC 2024 with confirmed support until October 2029, it remains part of most Microsoft 365 business subscription plans, and the Access development team has an active roadmap with features scheduled for rollout through mid-2026 and beyond, including rounded corners in form controls, zooming for continuous and popup forms, and improvements to linked field properties.
The tool is not dead. It never was.
The Questions Everyone Asks — Answered Honestly
Before getting into what Access is genuinely good for, it’s worth addressing the specific doubts that come up repeatedly:
“Is Microsoft discontinuing Access?”
No. Microsoft has stated clearly that Access is not being discontinued. What ended in 2017 was Access Web Apps on SharePoint — a separate product. The desktop version of Access continues to receive updates, new features, and active support. If you hear otherwise, the source is confusing an old version’s end-of-support date with the product being retired.
“Is Access still used by real companies?”
Yes — and more than most people realise. Depending on the data source, somewhere between 30,000 and 95,000+ companies are actively using Microsoft Access today, spanning small businesses, mid-sized firms, and large enterprises including Costco, CSL Limited, and companies in sectors ranging from healthcare to manufacturing. Access holds roughly 7–8% market share in the database management category. That’s not the market leader, but it’s far from irrelevant.
“Won’t I be learning a dying skill?”
This is the practical question that matters most, and the honest answer is: it depends on what you want to do. Access is not a skill that will get you a job as a software engineer. It is a skill that helps people — business analysts, administrators, operations staff, project managers, small business owners — build and manage powerful internal tools without needing a developer or a paid software subscription. That use case is alive and well in 2026.
“Why doesn’t anyone talk about it like other tools?”
Because Access doesn’t have a loud community of vendors, certification bodies, or tech evangelists behind it. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t run in the browser. It doesn’t have a mobile app. It does its job quietly and reliably in Windows environments, and the people who use it tend to just get on with using it rather than writing about it.
What Access Actually Is — The Fundamentals
If you’re new to Access or returning to it after a gap, here’s a clear picture of what the tool consists of.
Tables are where your data lives. Each table stores one type of information — employees, customers, orders, products. Tables have fields (columns) with specific data types, and every row is a record. Unlike Excel, where data just sits in a grid, Access tables are structured, typed, and relational.
Relationships are what make Access more than just a spreadsheet alternative. You can link tables together — for example, connecting an Orders table to a Customers table via a Customer ID field. This means you store customer information once and reference it from every order, rather than repeating it. It’s cleaner, more accurate, and much easier to maintain.
Queries let you ask questions of your data. You can pull specific records, filter by any condition, sort by any field, combine data from multiple tables, and perform calculations — all without writing code. For those who want more control, Access also supports SQL queries directly.
Forms are the interface people use to enter, view, and edit records. Instead of working directly in a table, users interact with a clean, designed screen. Forms can include dropdown menus, buttons, search boxes, validation rules, and custom logic built with VBA.
Reports generate formatted output — summaries, invoices, employee lists, inventory snapshots — that you can print or export to PDF.
Macros and VBA are the automation layer. Macros handle simple task sequences with no code. VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) is a full programming language that lets you build complex logic, automate workflows, interact with other Office applications, and create systems that behave like professional software.
Together, these components let you build things that would either take months to develop from scratch or require an expensive off-the-shelf subscription: employee management systems, inventory trackers, budget tools, customer databases, approval workflows, and more.
Where Access Genuinely Shines
Access is the right tool in several situations — and being clear about these helps avoid the frustration of using it where it doesn’t belong.
Small to mid-sized datasets on Windows. If your data has a few thousand to a few hundred thousand records and your team works on Windows, Access handles it efficiently. It’s not built for millions of records, but it’s far more capable than Excel in the range where most small business databases actually live.
Relational data that Excel can’t handle. The moment your data involves multiple related entities — customers and their orders, employees and their projects, products and their categories — Excel becomes painful. Access was built exactly for this. Relationships, referential integrity, and normalised data structures are its natural habitat.
Rapid development without a developer. A skilled Access user can build a functional multi-table database with a custom form, search functionality, and a printable report in a day or two. The equivalent custom web application would take weeks and cost significantly more. For internal tools, Access is hard to beat on speed-to-value.
Microsoft 365 integration. Access connects naturally to Excel, Outlook, Word, SharePoint, and SQL Server. You can import data from Excel, export query results to a spreadsheet, generate Word reports, send emails from VBA, and link Access to a SQL Server back-end when you need to scale up. That integration is one of its quietly underrated strengths.
Zero recurring cost for existing Microsoft 365 users. If your organisation already has Microsoft 365 Business Standard or higher, Access is already included. You’re not paying extra for it. For small businesses looking to avoid software subscription costs, building in Access can replace tools that would otherwise cost hundreds of pounds or dollars a year.
Where Access Falls Short
Being honest about the limitations is just as important as making the case for what Access does well.
Concurrent users. Access has a practical limit of around 10–15 simultaneous users on a shared file. Beyond that, performance degrades and data corruption risks increase. For larger teams, this is a real problem — though it can be addressed by splitting the database and moving the back-end to SQL Server.
No native web or mobile access. Access is a Windows desktop application. It doesn’t run in a browser and has no mobile app. If your team needs to access data from phones, tablets, or non-Windows machines, Access is not the right tool on its own. This is its biggest structural limitation in 2026.
Performance under heavy load. Large, complex queries across millions of rows, or forms pulling huge datasets, can be slow. Access is not an enterprise database engine. It works well within its scale; pushed beyond it, it struggles.
The 2017 confusion hangover. The discontinuation of Access Web Apps still causes misunderstandings. Some IT departments have blanket policies against Access based on outdated information. Some developers dismiss it without knowing what it actually does. If you’re in an organisation where this bias exists, you may face resistance regardless of how well-suited Access is for the task.
GDPR and compliance edge cases. Access databases shared on a network are not encrypted by default, and access controls are relatively basic. For handling sensitive personal data, you need to think carefully about security, encryption, and audit trails. Access can be configured to be reasonably secure, but it requires deliberate effort.
Automating Processes with Access
One of the most powerful — and least discussed — aspects of Access is what you can build with it once you add VBA into the picture.
At the basic level, you can automate repetitive data tasks: importing a daily report from Excel, running a cleanup query to remove duplicates, generating and emailing a PDF report to a list of recipients. These are things a person might spend hours doing manually each week; in Access with VBA, they become a single button click.
At the more advanced level, Access can serve as the backbone of a complete business workflow system. Expense approvals, stock management, employee onboarding tracking, project management dashboards, invoice generation — these are all things people have built, and continue to build, in Access. The Skill Header channel alone has published complete project tutorials covering accounting systems, HR management systems, login systems, budget trackers, and multi-user task management tools — all built entirely in Access.
The point is that Access is not just a database viewer. With VBA, it becomes a development platform — one that’s accessible to people without a formal programming background and doesn’t require a server, a hosting plan, or a development team to deploy.
Is It Worth Learning in 2026?
Here’s the straight answer: yes, in the right context.
If you work in a Windows-based environment, deal with structured data, and want to build useful tools without hiring a developer or paying for off-the-shelf software, Access is absolutely worth learning. The learning curve is manageable — the basics of tables, queries, and forms are approachable for anyone with reasonable computer skills, and VBA opens up significantly more capability when you’re ready for it.
If you’re a developer looking for something to add to your professional portfolio for software engineering roles, Access is not where you should invest your energy. Modern web development, Python, SQL in cloud environments, or Power Apps will serve you better in that career direction.
But if you’re a business analyst, an operations manager, an accountant, a project coordinator, or anyone who works with data day-to-day and wants to build something that actually solves a real problem for your team — Access in 2026 is a legitimate, stable, well-supported choice that will get you there faster than almost any alternative at its price point.
The rumours of its death have been greatly exaggerated. And in the meantime, a lot of quiet, productive work continues to get done in databases that run on it.
Watch the original video this post is based on: Is MS Access Viable in 2025? by Skill Header. For tutorials, project files, and download resources, visit skillheader.com.
