How to Clear a Filter in an Access Form?

To clear a filter in an Access form, you can use one of several methods directly within the form interface or programmatically.

Clearing a filter allows you to see all records in your form again, removing the criteria that were previously applied. Here are the common ways to achieve this:

Methods for Clearing a Filter

Access provides user-friendly options and a programmatic approach to reset your form's view back to displaying all records.

1. Using the Toggle Filter Button

The quickest way to remove an active filter is by using the dedicated button on the ribbon or navigation bar.

Locate the Toggle Filter button. This button typically looks like a funnel and is often found in the "Sort & Filter" group on the "Home" tab of the ribbon.
When a filter is applied, the Toggle Filter button appears pressed-in.
Simply click the Toggle Filter button. This action removes the current filter and displays all records. Clicking it again will re-apply the last filter.

2. Right-Clicking the Filtered Field

Another intuitive method involves interacting directly with the field that was used for filtering.

Identify the field(s) in your form that were used to apply the filter.
Right-click on the specific field you filtered by.
In the context menu that appears, look for an option like Clear filter from "[Field Name]".
Click on this option to remove the filter applied through that specific field.

3. Using VBA Code

For more advanced scenarios, such as clearing filters automatically based on an event or a button click, you can use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications).

Open the form in Design View.
Access the VBA code module for the form (e.g., by right-clicking the form in the Navigation Pane and selecting "Build Event" for an event like On Open, or by adding a command button and building its On Click event).
In the VBA editor, you can use the FilterOn property of the form.
Set the FilterOn property to False.

Here is a simple example of VBA code to clear the filter:

Private Sub btnClearFilter_Click()
    ' Clears any active filter on the current form
    Me.FilterOn = False
End Sub

This code would typically be placed in the Click event procedure of a button named btnClearFilter.

By utilizing these methods, you can easily manage the filters applied to your Access forms, allowing you to switch between filtered and complete views of your data efficiently.