2 gigabytes, minus the space needed for system objects. Note: You can work around this size limitation by linking to tables in other Access databases. You can link to tables in multiple database files, each of which can be as large as 2GB.
Therefore in order to build Access databases larger than 2 Gbytes, you have to put the database tables in separate files, and then create links to those tables from a primary database file. Retired programmer & systems architect.
Although a single file can only hold 2GB, you can set up access with databases with much more than 2GB. For example you could have one database file with all the forms and reports, linking to multiple other files with the data in.
How many users can Microsoft Access handle?
A discussion to confront the myth that Microsoft Access applications can handle no more than 20 or 30 users. We believe it can handle hundreds of simultaneous users with a Microsoft Access back end database, and a virtually unlimited number if linked to a SQL Server database: I agree with you that Access can handle hundreds of simultaneous users.
One query we ran across in our research was “How many users can access an access database at once?”.
If you mean how many users can access an Access database simultaneously, the theoretical limit is 255 but in practice it’s between two and about six before performance, reliability, and sometimes database integrity suffer to the point of failure. MS Access makes a good front-end for SQL DBMSs like Postgre, sql, my SQL, and Microsoft SQL Server.
What are some of the limitations of MS Access?
For full details of various limitations in MS Access, refer to this web page: Microsoft Access Specifications and Limitations. The maximum size of an MS Access database file is 2GB (if your file gets larger than that, some very strange things start to happen).
How many simultaneous users can a database handle?
We believe it can handle hundreds of simultaneous users with a Microsoft Access back end database, and a virtually unlimited number if linked to a SQL Server database: I agree with you that Access can handle hundreds of simultaneous users.