Techniques are described herein for making a clean file snapshot of a target file. The techniques may be applied to a single target file, to a set of target files, or to an entire database The techniques involve transitioning the target file through a series of states. During each state, particular actions are performed and/or prevented. In the final state of each approach, a clean file snapshot of the target file exists. Transitioning through the states, only one of which does not allow new changes to be made to the target file, allows the database to remain online and available to a greater extent than is possible with an approach that prevents database changes for the duration of the clean file snapshot creation operation.