In the 1980s, Microsoft Access referred to an unrelated telecommunication program that provided terminal emulation and interfaces for ease of use in accessing online services such as Dow Jones, Compuserve and electronic mailbox. With Microsoft's purchase of FoxPro in 1992 and the incorporation of Fox's Rushmore query optimization routines into Access, Microsoft Access quickly became the dominant database for Windows-effectively eliminating the competition which failed to transition from the MS-DOS world. Microsoft Access was the first mass-market database program for Windows. Prior to the introduction of Access, Borland (with Paradox and dBase) and Fox (with FoxPro) dominated the desktop database market. Visual objects used in forms and reports expose their methods and properties in the VBA programming environment, and VBA code modules may declare and call Windows operating system operations. Like other Microsoft Office applications, Access is supported by Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), an object-based programming language that can reference a variety of objects including the legacy DAO (Data Access Objects), ActiveX Data Objects, and many other ActiveX components.

Software developers, data architects and power users can use Microsoft Access to develop application software.

It can also import or link directly to data stored in other applications and databases. Microsoft Access stores data in its own format based on the Access Database Engine (formerly Jet Database Engine).

It is a member of the Microsoft 365 suite of applications, included in the Professional and higher editions or sold separately. Microsoft Access is a database management system (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational Access Database Engine (ACE) with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.

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