Data mining is a way to find important and interesting information by going through a lot of stored data. It uses special computer programs and math techniques to recognize patterns and trends. The goal is to analyze datasets and discover unexpected connections that can be useful to the owner of the data.
Usually, data mining involves advanced searches that give specific and focused results. For example, a data mining tool can go through many years of accounting data to find a specific list of expenses or money owed in a particular year.
Data mining can involve different software tools, like analytics programs. It can be done automatically by computers or with the help of people who send specific questions to a database.