PDF Metadata Remover
Read what your PDF says about you, then wipe it — before the file leaves your machine.
Click to choose a PDF, or drag & drop it
PDF only · read and rewritten in your browser, never uploaded
Metadata found in this file
Done
What this tool does
Every PDF carries a block of information about itself: who wrote it, what program produced it, what it is called, and when it was created and last modified. It is invisible when you read the document and it travels with the file wherever you send it.
This tool shows you those fields and then clears them. The ones that catch people out are mundane: a client name left in the title, a username in the author field, a full file path in the producer, or a colleague's name in the creator on a document that was supposed to be anonymous.
What it does not claim to do is a forensic clean. The file is rewritten from its object model, so anything outside that model does not survive the rewrite — but that is a consequence of how the file is written rather than a scan that reports what it found. If a document genuinely must not be recoverable, rasterise it: the PDF Compressor turns every page into an image, which leaves nothing but pictures.
How to use it
- Drop in your PDF. The tool reads it and lists every metadata field it can find, with its current value — including the creation and modification timestamps.
- Read the list before you decide. It is often the point of the exercise: the author field on a document you are about to send anonymously is exactly what you want to see.
- Press Remove metadata. The six document information fields are cleared and both dates are set to 1 January 1970 rather than "now", so the scrubbed file carries no timestamp at all.
- The cleaned copy downloads immediately, and the panel confirms the file is on its way.
Common use cases
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Anonymous submissions
Strip your name and organisation from a manuscript, a bid or a review before it goes to a blind panel.
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Client-facing documents
Remove internal usernames, machine names and file paths that leaked into the file when it was exported.
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Publishing and press
Clear the authoring history from a PDF before it is posted publicly, where anyone can read it with a two-line script.
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Before sharing a template
Remove your own details from a document you are handing to someone else to reuse.
Frequently asked questions
Is this a complete forensic clean?
No, and the page will not claim it is. It clears the document information dictionary and both dates, and rewriting the file drops structures outside pdf-lib's object model — including the XMP packet some producers embed. If a document must be beyond any recovery, run it through the PDF Compressor, which rebuilds every page as an image and leaves no text or metadata behind at all.
Why are the dates set to 1970 instead of today?
Because stamping the current time on a scrubbed file would just be a different identifier. Setting both dates to the Unix epoch is unambiguous and is what other metadata scrubbers write, so the result is recognisably cleaned rather than freshly dated.
Does removing metadata change how the document looks?
No. The visible pages, text, images and links are untouched — the fields being cleared are not rendered anywhere on the page.