How to Use Group By in Queries MS Access

Quick summary

The Group By function in MS Access queries lets you aggregate and categorize records by a specific field directly inside Query Design. Using the Totals row with Group By, you can summarize large datasets without writing SQL manually.

Steps

1. Navigate to the Create tab in the MS Access ribbon.
2. Click the Query Design button to open a new query in design view.
3. Add the table or query containing the field you want to count by clicking Add Selected Tables.
4. Drag the desired field into the query grid.
5. Click the Totals button (Σ symbol) in the ribbon to enable the Total row.
6. In the Total Row, select Group By from the dropdown.
7. Click the Run button to execute the query and view the grouped results.
8. Review the output — your records are now grouped and aggregated by the selected field.