Scidb provides an open Clipbase database at program start, which is just like any other database, except that it exists in memory only and has no files for permanent storage. This means that the capacity of this database is limited. The pre-defined name for this database is Clipbase.

The Clipbase cannot be closed. It exists a menu function for emptying the Clipbase (⇒ Empty Clipbase).

The Clipbase keeps data in Scidb's native format and is an exception, because it may contain various chess variants concurrently. But administrative operations (⇒ Maintenance) can be applied to only one variant.