Forum Discussion
Explore and edit Microsoft Access databases (.accdb / .mdb) directly from VS Code.
Hi everyone, I'm looking for a way to move away from the native Access VBE and start using Visual Studio Code as my primary text editor. I mostly want to leverage its modern features like Dark Mode, multi-cursors, and better shortcuts. During my research, I came across the "Access Explorer" extension, which claims to let you "Explore and edit Microsoft Access databases (.accdb / .mdb) directly from VS Code". Before I risk running this on any live database, I wanted to ask the community: How stable is it? Does it work well for daily development? Is there any risk of database corruption when it saves and injects the edited code back into the .accdb file? How does it handle form/report class modules (Form_FormName), or is it only reliable for standard modules (.bas)? If you have used this extension or have a smooth alternative workflow to read/write code directly between VS Code and Access without manual copy-pasting, I would love to hear your thoughts!
4 Replies
I would love to hear how this works out for you.
I like this tool a lot:
https://github.com/joyfullservice/msaccess-vcs-addin
Combine it with storage in a private github repository so your code is protected.
Use Access Explorer for convenience and modern editing, but never on production databases without backups. For daily development, it is stable enough if prerequisites are met, but treat it as a productivity enhancer but not a replacement for Access VBE reliability.
https://github.com/gvijaikumar9/UserAccessExplorer
I guess it depends, in part, on how the work is done and how it is validated. As you point out, Development should be done on a Development instance. Work should not be moved into Production until it's validated and approved.
But that's no different than the way we've been working for a long time. It's only a tool change, not a process change.
