How do I count unique items in field in Access query?

Access-Engine does not support

SELECT count(DISTINCT....) FROM ...

You have to do it like this:

SELECT count(*) 
FROM
(SELECT DISTINCT Name FROM table1)

Its a little workaround... you're counting a DISTINCT selection.

A quick trick to use for me is using the find duplicates query SQL and changing 1 to 0 in Having expression. Like this:

SELECT COUNT([UniqueField]) AS DistinctCNT FROM
(
  SELECT First([FieldName]) AS [UniqueField]
  FROM TableName
  GROUP BY [FieldName]
  HAVING (((Count([FieldName]))>0))
);

Hope this helps, not the best way I am sure, and Access should have had this built in.

Try this

SELECT Count(*) AS N
FROM
(SELECT DISTINCT Name FROM table1) AS T;

Read this for more info.