Selecting the First Item in a ComboBox or ListBox on a Microsoft Access Form

Combo boxes and list boxes are a great way to control user experience by limiting the values that a user can choose to a known list.

By default, the value is blank but when you initialize or refresh a ComboBox or ListBox, you may want to select the first item in the list.

This can occur when the form loads, or if the RowSource values of the ListBox or ComboBox change based on another selection (see our tip on Cascading ComboBoxes/ListBoxes).

To replace the blank value, use this syntax to set the value of the control to the first item (assumes Column Heads is set to No):

Me.ControlName = Me.ControlName.ItemData(0)

Our example database contains a form with a ComboBox containing ProductCategories, and a ListBox containing Products.

When we load the form, we want to select the first Category in the list.

Private Sub Form_Load()
  ' When the form loads, select the first item in the Category ComboBox
  Me.cboCategoryName = Me.cboCategoryName.ItemData(0)

  ' Call the code that updates the Products ListBox based on the selected category
  cboCategoryName_AfterUpdate

End Sub

When we change the Category, we want to update the Products list, and select the first Product in the list:

Private Sub cboCategoryName_AfterUpdate()
  ' Call the code that updates the Products ListBox based on the selected category
  Me.lstProducts.RowSource = "SELECT ProductName " & _  
    "FROM products " & _
    "WHERE CategoryID = " & Nz(Me.cboCategoryName)

  ' Re-load the list box
  Me.lstProducts.Requery

  ' Select the first Product in the list box
  Me.lstProducts = Me.lstProducts.ItemData(0)

End Sub

After updating the RowSource property, use the list box's Requery method to re-load the data in the ListBox.