Clean Hidden Metadata from PDFs and Office Files
Documents talk about their authors. PDFs and Office files carry names, company fields, edit timestamps, software versions, comments, and custom properties — details you rarely see but every recipient can. This tool inspects those properties locally, strips them, and gives you a report of what was found and removed. The document itself never leaves your browser.
The actual tool runs in our ad-free secure workspace — nothing on this page processes your file.
Open Remove Document Metadata →What this tool does
- Reads and displays PDF Info and XMP metadata: author, title, subject, keywords, creator software, and creation/modification dates.
- Inspects Office documents (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX) for core properties, company fields, comments, and custom properties.
- Removes the properties you choose — or everything — and writes a cleaned copy.
- Generates a privacy report listing what was detected, what was removed, and anything it could not inspect.
- Processes multiple documents in one batch.
Your privacy on this tool
Stays on your device
- Documents are parsed and rewritten entirely on your device.
- Author names, company fields, and edit histories are displayed only to you, in your browser.
- The cleaned file and the report are generated locally; nothing is uploaded or logged.
Reaches our server: nothing
This tool makes no upload. Your content is processed entirely in your browser.
How to use it
- Open the tool at /app/remove-document-metadata.
- Add PDFs or Office files (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX).
- Review the metadata report — author fields and company names surprise most people.
- Strip everything, or keep deliberate fields like a title you set on purpose.
- Download the cleaned copies and the report, and share only the cleaned versions.
Common uses
- Submitting a proposal or bid where internal author names and your company's software stack should not be visible.
- Sending a resume built from a template that still names the template's original author.
- Publishing a report where reviewer comments and tracked-change remnants must not surface.
- Sharing legal or HR documents whose revision timestamps could contradict a stated timeline.
- Cleaning conference slides (PPTX) that carry the previous presenter's name from a reused deck.
- Preparing spreadsheets for external partners without leaking who in your org touched them.
Supported formats
- DOCX
- XLSX
- PPTX
Works in all modern browsers on desktop and mobile; large documents clean fastest on desktop.
Limitations & security notes
Limitations
- This tool removes document properties — it does not redact visible content. Names typed in the body of the document stay; use the redaction tool for those.
- Deeply embedded artifacts — objects nested inside other objects, unusual PDF structures — may not be fully inspectable; the report flags what could not be checked rather than staying silent.
- Password-protected files must be unlocked before cleaning.
- Cleaning a copy does nothing for versions already sent or published.
- SecretPNG is in beta and has not been independently audited.
Security notes
- The riskiest fields are the boring ones: 'Author', 'Company', and 'Last modified by' have deanonymized whistleblowers and revealed outside consultants ghost-writing 'internal' reports.
- Modification dates tell stories — a contract 'drafted last month' with a creation date of yesterday raises questions you may not want raised.
- Comments and tracked changes in Office files can contain entire deleted paragraphs; the report calls them out specifically.
- Make cleaning the final step before sending — exporting, converting, or re-editing after cleaning can reintroduce metadata.
- Read the report rather than assuming: what a file was hiding is often more instructive than the cleaning itself.
Frequently asked questions
- What metadata do PDFs actually contain?
- Two layers: the Info dictionary (author, title, subject, keywords, creator and producer software, creation and modification dates) and XMP — an XML block that can hold far more, including edit history and identifiers from the software that made the file. The tool inspects and can strip both.
- Will cleaning change how my document looks?
- No. Properties live outside the rendered content — pages, fonts, layout, and images are untouched. The only differences are in what file inspectors and 'Properties' panels can see.
- Does this remove my name from a Word document?
- From the document properties — Author, Last modified by, Company — yes. If your name is typed in the visible text, headers, or footers, that is content, not metadata, and needs editing or redaction instead. The report makes clear which layer it operated on.
- What is a custom property and why would my file have one?
- Organizations and document-management systems attach their own fields to Office files — client codes, matter numbers, review status, internal routing tags. They travel with the file invisibly and can leak internal information wholesale. The tool lists and removes them.
- Is 'Save As' or 'Print to PDF' enough to strip metadata?
- Not reliably. Some export paths copy properties straight into the new file, and 'Print to PDF' adds fresh metadata about your system. An explicit inspection with a report is the only way to know what a file carries rather than guessing at what an export path might have dropped.
Related tools
Last reviewed: 2026-07-14Open Remove Document Metadata
SecretPNG is in beta and has not been independently audited. Security status.