Convert MS Access to Oracle

Upload a .mdb or .accdb or .mde file and get back a Oracle SQL script you can load straight into your database. Types are preserved rather than flattened to text. Free, no registration, up to 10MB.

Click to upload or drag and drop

CSV, Excel, SQLite, SQL, DBF (max 10 MB)

How your data is typed in Oracle

Generated from the converter's own Oracle type mapping — this is what it actually emits, not an example.

Your dataOracle type
Whole numberNUMBER(19)
Decimal (money)NUMBER(10,2)
Floating pointBINARY_DOUBLE
True / falseNUMBER(1)
DateDATE
Date and timeTIMESTAMP
Short textVARCHAR2(255)
Long textCLOB
Binary dataBLOB

Working from an Access database

An Access file is an application as much as a database: tables, but also queries, forms, reports, macros and VBA modules. Only one of those is data, and only that one is something a conversion can carry anywhere else.

  • The tables convert. Saved queries, forms, reports, macros and modules are not data and do not appear in the output - re-create a query as a view in the target if you need it.
  • Access types map to fixed shapes: Currency to DECIMAL(19,4), matching Access's own four fixed decimal places, Decimal to DECIMAL(18,6), Long Integer to a 32-bit integer, Byte and Integer to 16-bit, Memo and Hyperlink to text, OLE and Binary to a blob.
  • If the file cannot be opened at all - a database password, or real damage - the conversion stops with the underlying tool's own error instead of handing you a partial result.

Oracle-specific edges in the script

Oracle diverges further from ordinary SQL than any other target here, and the script is shaped around that. Three of its choices are worth reading before you load, because each is a place where the source can hold something Oracle has no room for.

  • Oracle's reserved list is full of words that legacy tables use as column names, so those get a trailing underscore: a column called DATE becomes DATE_, NUMBER becomes NUMBER_, LEVEL becomes LEVEL_.
  • Binary values are written as HEXTORAW('...'), which a plain SQL script can carry only up to 2000 hex characters - 1000 bytes. Anything larger needs PL/SQL chunking that no portable script can express, so a table of real attachments moves better through the SQLite or DuckDB target.
  • A string column of unknown length is declared VARCHAR2(4000) and anything longer becomes a CLOB. Under the default settings VARCHAR2 counts bytes rather than characters, so 4000 characters of Cyrillic or CJK will not fit in one.
  • Rows are batched a hundred to a statement, each block closed off with SELECT 1 FROM DUAL, so a 100,000-row table arrives as a thousand statements rather than a hundred thousand.

Reading MS Access

  • Dates are exported in ISO form, avoiding the ambiguous 12/02/21 that Access tools produce by default.
  • NULL and the empty string stay distinct.
  • Access can hold dates outside the range it can represent. Those become NULL and the conversion tells you, rather than dropping them silently.
  • Requires mdbtools on the server; if it is unavailable you get a clear error rather than a partial conversion.

Writing Oracle

  • Uses INSERT ALL rather than multi-row VALUES, which Oracle rejects outright — the most common reason a generated Oracle script fails to load.
  • Dates are written with TO_DATE and an explicit format mask.
  • Booleans become NUMBER(1), because Oracle had no BOOLEAN column type before 23c.
  • Identifiers are capped at 30 characters so the script loads on Oracle 12.1 and earlier too.
  • Note that Oracle itself treats an empty string as NULL — that is Oracle behaviour, not a conversion error.

What you get

A ZIP containing dump.sql, plus a README with the exact command to load it. If anything about your data needed a judgement call, a _warnings.txt explains it.

Load this dump into Oracle:

  sqlplus USER/PASSWORD@//HOST:1521/SERVICE @dump.sql

Notes specific to Oracle:

  - Oracle treats an empty string as NULL. A column that held ''
    in the source will read back as NULL here. This is Oracle
    behaviour, not a conversion error, and it cannot be avoided.
  - Booleans are NUMBER(1), 1 or 0: Oracle had no BOOLEAN column
    type before 23c.
  - Identifiers are capped at 30 characters for compatibility
    with 12.1 and earlier.
  - Table and column names are quoted, so Oracle keeps their exact
    case. Unquoted Oracle identifiers fold to upper case, which
    means you must quote them in your queries too:
    SELECT * FROM "MyTable"; not SELECT * FROM MyTable;

Questions

Is converting MS Access to Oracle free?
Yes. Files up to 10MB convert free with no account. There is a limit of five conversions per day per IP address.
Will my MS Access data keep its types in Oracle?
Yes — that is the point. Whole numbers, decimals, dates and booleans are mapped to real Oracle types rather than everything becoming text. The mapping table above shows exactly what you get.
Do you store my file?
No. The file is written to a temporary directory, converted, and the directory is deleted as soon as your download has been sent.

This conversion, under other names

Convert MS Access to something else

Convert something else to Oracle