Reading MS Access MDB Files on Mac

… when you have to do it

“The back of the lid of an open MacBook laptop” by Marcin Nowak on Unsplash

Installations on Terminal

Install Homebrew, if you don’t have it

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"Install mdbtools

Install mdbtools

brew install mdbtools

Install meza (optional)

pip install meza

Python Code for Reading Data

Get table from a mdb file

import pandas as pd
import subprocess
 
def show_tables(path='<file_name>.mdb'):
    tables = subprocess.check_output(["mdb-tables", path])
    return tables.decode().split()

Get data from a table

import pandas as pd
import subprocess
 
def show_data(path='<file_name>.mdb', table='<table_name>'):
    tables = subprocess.check_output(["mdb-export", path, table])
    return tables.decode().split('\n')
 
def convert_df(path, table):
    d = show_data(path, table)
    columns = d[0].split(',')
    data = [i.split(',') for i in d[1:]]
    df = pd.DataFrame(columns=columns, data=data)
    return df

What was useless for me

1. FreeTDS
2. sqlalchemy’s access dialect
3. pypyodbc, which only works for Windows
4. pyodbc
5. MS Excel