The SELECT INTO statement is most often used to create backup copies of tables or for archiving records.

Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) INTO newtable [IN externaldatabase] 
FROM source

Make a Backup Copy

The following example makes a backup copy of the "Persons" table:

SELECT * INTO Persons_backup
FROM Persons

The IN clause can be used to copy tables into another database:

SELECT Persons.* INTO Persons IN 'Backup.mdb'
FROM Persons

If you only want to copy a few fields, you can do so by listing them after the SELECT statement:

SELECT LastName,FirstName INTO Persons_backup
FROM Persons

You can also add a WHERE clause. The following example creates a "Persons_backup" table with two columns (FirstName and LastName) by extracting the persons who lives in "Sandnes" from the "Persons" table:

SELECT LastName,Firstname INTO Persons_backup
FROM Persons
WHERE City='Sandnes'

Selecting data from more than one table is also possible. The following example creates a new table "Empl_Ord_backup" that contains data from the two tables Employees and Orders:

SELECT Employees.Name,Orders.Product
INTO Empl_Ord_backup
FROM Employees
INNER JOIN Orders
ON Employees.Employee_ID=Orders.Employee_ID