Remove metadata from PDF
Author, producer, creation and modification dates, XMP, and who left which comment. Listed first, deleted on request.
Drag PDFs in, paste, or click to choose
A whole folder works too · Ctrl/Cmd+V pastes · on phone this opens your photo library · up to 100 MB per file
Add a PDF and everything it is carrying gets listed here first. Nothing is deleted until you press the button, and nothing is uploaded at any point.
What gets removed when you remove metadata from a PDF
Five things come out. The Info dictionary, which is where the author, producer, creator and the creation and modification timestamps live. The XMP block, an XML record the editing application keeps, which usually duplicates those names and adds its own history. Page-level XMP, when a document has it. Private application data, an undocumented scratch area that programs use for their own bookkeeping. And the authorship on comments — who left each one and when, though the comment text itself is left alone because that is something you can see and decide about yourself. Each is listed with its actual value before anything happens, so you can tell what the document was about to reveal.
Not taking our word for it is the point: the code that does this is on GitHub, tests included.
What it cannot do
- Images placed inside the PDF keep their own EXIF, GPS included. That data sits inside the image stream, which this tool copies across rather than opens.
- Anything typed into a form stays exactly as typed. Form values are content; deleting them would be destroying your document, not cleaning it.
- Encrypted files are returned unchanged rather than guessed at.
- Removing metadata does not make a document anonymous. Letterheads, signatures and names in the body text are all still there.
Questions people actually ask
- Does removing metadata from a PDF change how it looks?
- No. The page content objects are carried into the new file as they are, so text, images and layout come out identical. What changes is the bookkeeping wrapped around them.
- How can I check the metadata is really gone?
- Reopen the result in a viewer and look at document properties — but be aware that is only half a check, since it tells you what a viewer reads rather than what the file contains. A stricter check needs a tool that decompresses the object streams first, because PDFs routinely store this data compressed and a plain text search will find nothing either way.
- Can I remove metadata from a PDF someone else made?
- Yes, and no password is involved unless the file is encrypted, in which case it is handed back untouched. Documents you received are in fact where this matters most: a file that has passed through several hands often carries the whole chain of who opened and saved it.
- Does removing metadata affect a signed PDF?
- It will invalidate the signature. A digital signature covers the bytes of the document, and rewriting it changes them — that is exactly what a signature is designed to detect. If a file is signed and the signature matters, do not run it through this.
