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Embase Help Guide

Guide to searching Embase, a biomedical database focused on drugs and pharmacology, medical devices, clinical medicine, and basic sciences relevant to clinical medicine.

Set Up an Embase Account

Individual Embase Accounts

Saving, exporting, and emailing your results and searches requires a personal Embase account. This account is free, but it is a separate step from accessing Embase with your UW NetID.

Caution: Elsevier, the creator of Embase, is owned by RELX, a company that contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Please read the terms and conditions of creating an individual Embase account carefully. Learn more about library vendor surveillance.

How to create an account:

  1. If you have been searching already, copy your search into a document or export your search history because it may be lost during the registration step.
  2. Click on the Register link at the top of the screen and follow the prompts.

Once you are logged in, you will be able to save your searches and results, and access them under the My Tools link at the top of the screen.

My Tools banner in Embase

Export to Citation Managers

Click the boxes next to the citations you want to export to your citation manager. To export all the results, click on the dropdown for Select number of items, choose the entry is the same as the number of results.

Exporting all results in Embase

Click Export. Select “RIS format (Mendeley, EndNote)” as your format, then click the Export button. When your data is ready, download the file and save it to the relevant folder. You are now ready to import the citations.

Save Results and Searches

Saving results

Clipboard creates temporary sets of search results for the duration of your session. You can then save the clipboard to save the set of results between sessions.

To save results, click the boxes for individual desired results or select all results. Click on Add to Clipboard. Go to My Tools, then Clipboard. At the top or bottom of the box, click Save this Clipboard.

Save this Clipboard location

Choose whether to create a new saved Clipboard or add the results to a previously-saved Clipboard. You can now re-visit your results under Saved Clipboards in My Tools.

Saving a search

To save a search, check the box beside the desired search(es) and click on Save.

Save search in Embase
Then you will be prompted to pick a location for your saved search. The default location is in your private folder, which you can find under My Tools. In the Saved Searches section of My Tools, you also can create subfolders for organizing you searches or share your searches with other UW Embase users.

Email Results and Searches

If your searching is likely to occur over multiple sessions, emailing or exporting your search history can help you keep track of your search development process. It is also useful if you are writing a review where your search will need to be reported or updated.
Emailing or exporting your search history can help you keep track of your search development process. To do so, click the box next to History to select the whole search history for the current session, then Export or Email. To do so, click the box next to History to select the whole search history for the current session, then Export or Email.
Note: to view in Excel, export your search history in CSV format. In Excel, use Save As to convert it to an Excel document.

Email or export Embase search history

Create Alert or RSS Feed

Create Email Alerts & RSS Feed

To receive notifications about new journal articles matching your search, set up an email alert or add it to your RSS feed.

Email alerts require a personal Embase account as with saving searches and results. To create the alert, click "Set email alert" at the top of the results box:

Set email alert illustration in Embase

Name your alert, check your email address, then set the email format, record content, frequency and other options to your preferences. Click Set email alert. You can update any of this information in the Email Alerts section of My Tools, as well as turn off or delete alerts.

RSS Feed

If you would prefer to receive notifications about new results for your search via your RSS reader, select "Set RSS feed" instead of "Set email alert." Enter a name for the search feed and click ‘Continue’, then click the link to open your RSS feed. Depending on your browser settings, the link will either open in your RSS reader or will open a new browser window or tab. If the feed opens in your browser, copy the URL in the address bar and use it to create an RSS feed in your RSS reader. Further information on using an RSS reader with Embase is available in the Embase Support Center.