Online PDF tool

PDF Metadata Remover: Remove Metadata from PDF and Edit PDF Metadata Online

Strip the author, title, producer and timestamps out of a PDF, or write new values into them, then download the cleaned file

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Remove all metadata Clears every field and the XMP packet Edit the fields Write your own title, author, subject and keywords

To remove metadata from a PDF, upload the file above and choose Remove all metadata: the document is rebuilt from its page content, so the title, author, subject, keywords, creator, producer and both timestamps are destroyed along with the XMP packet, and you download a file that carries none of them. The alternative mode writes your own values into those fields instead of clearing them. The pages, the layout and the selectable text are unchanged either way, because only the file structure around them is rewritten.

Last updated August 2026.

What this PDF metadata remover actually clears

A PDF stores its metadata in two separate places, and a lot of tools only clear one of them. The Info dictionary is the older key and value list that almost every file carries. The XMP packet is an XML block that newer software writes alongside it, holding much of the same information again. Clearing the first while leaving the second is the most common way a file that looks clean still names its author.

Field	What it usually holds	Remove all	Edit the fields
Author	A real name or a network username, taken from the account	Cleared	Replaced with your value
Title	Often an internal document name or a draft heading	Cleared	Replaced with your value
Subject and Keywords	Rarely filled in, but revealing when they are	Cleared	Replaced with your value
Creator	The program the document was written in	Cleared	Cleared
Producer	The exact library and version that wrote the PDF	Cleared	Cleared
Creation and modification dates	Timestamps with a timezone offset, which survive emailing	Cleared	Cleared
XMP packet	An XML copy of the same fields, plus editing history in some files	Cleared and unlinked	Cleared and unlinked
Page content and text	The document itself	Left alone	Left alone

One point worth being precise about. The producer and both timestamps are cleared in edit mode too, not just in remove mode. There is no sensible reason to keep a producer string that names the tool you used, and a creation date is frequently the single most revealing thing in the file, because it says when the work was really done.

How this compares to the other ways of removing PDF metadata

There are five realistic options, and this page is not the right answer for all of them. Here is an honest comparison, including the cases where you should use something else.

Method	Clears XMP too	Cost	Handles batches	Best for
This page	Yes	No charge	No, one file at a time	One or two documents, from any machine, including a locked down work laptop
Acrobat Pro, Sanitize document	Yes	Paid subscription	Yes, through Actions	The most thorough option, and it also strips scripts, attachments and form data
exiftool or qpdf on the command line	Yes	No charge	Yes, whole folders	Hundreds of files, scripted workflows, and documents that must never leave your machine
Windows File Explorer properties	No	Included	Yes, in theory	Office files. On PDFs it frequently does nothing at all, see below
macOS Preview	No	Included	No	Reading metadata only. Preview cannot edit or remove it

Two honest limitations of this page. It uploads the file to our server to rebuild it, so a document under a confidentiality obligation that forbids third party processing should go through a local tool instead. And it handles one file at a time, so an archive of several hundred PDFs is a job for exiftool, not for a browser tab. For a handful of documents on a machine where you cannot install anything, it is the fastest route there is.

How to remove metadata from a PDF on Windows, Mac and Linux

Windows, and why the built in route disappoints

Right click, Properties, Details, Remove Properties and Personal Information is the route everyone tries first, and it works well on Word and Excel files. On PDFs it commonly does nothing: the Apply button greys out and the fields are all still there when you reopen the file. Microsoft notes that not every file type supports removing all of its properties, and PDF is one of the awkward ones, so plan on a real PDF tool instead.

Mac

macOS ships nothing that removes PDF metadata. The Preview inspector, at Tools then Show Inspector, displays the fields but will not change them. The Print then Save as PDF trick that gets suggested online is unreliable, because the Quartz PDF engine copies most of the source metadata straight into the new file. Homebrew and exiftool are the dependable local answer.

Adobe Acrobat Pro

Open All tools, choose Redact a PDF, then Sanitize document and Remove all. It clears metadata along with scripts, attachments, hidden layers, embedded search indexes and stored form data. Remove hidden information is the selective version, where you tick what goes. Neither one is in the free Reader, so this route needs a paid Acrobat Pro licence.

Linux and the command line

exiftool with the all equals nothing switch clears both the Info dictionary and the XMP packet, and it will walk an entire directory in one command. qpdf can rewrite a file without its metadata as well. Both run locally, which matters when the document is not allowed to leave the building, and both are the right tool once you are past a few dozen files.

Word and Google Docs, before export

If you control the source document, the cleanest fix is upstream. Word has Document Inspector under File, Info, Check for Issues, which strips author and comment data before you export. Google Docs writes far less metadata to begin with. Cleaning the source saves you from remembering to clean every PDF you generate from it afterwards.

Scanned documents

A scan carries metadata like any other PDF, and the producer field usually names the copier model or the scanning software, which quietly identifies the office the document came from. There is no author to remove because no word processor was involved, but the device name is often the more sensitive of the two.

How the cleaning works, and why it is a rewrite rather than a patch

This matters more than it sounds, because it is the difference between metadata that is gone and metadata that is merely out of sight.

The file is read and its current fields are reported back to you

Before anything is changed, the tool lists what the document was carrying, including fields hidden inside compressed object streams that a plain text search would miss. You see exactly what was in there, which is usually the moment people realise how much a PDF says about them.

The document is written out as a completely new file

The pages are rebuilt into a fresh PDF rather than edited in place. Nothing from the old Info dictionary or the old XMP packet is copied across, so there are no leftover bytes for a forensic tool to recover. This is also why the approach works on modern files whose metadata lives inside a compressed object stream.

The traces left by the cleaning itself are blanked out

Any rebuild writes a new producer string and a new timestamp naming the tool that did the work. A second pass clears those too, and empties the fresh XMP packet, so the cleaned file does not advertise how it was cleaned. Plenty of online cleaners skip this step and hand back a file stamped with their own name.

You download the result and both copies are deleted

The uploaded original is removed as soon as the cleaned version exists, and the cleaned version is removed the moment you download it. Expect the whole thing to take a second or two for a typical document, and a few seconds for a long scanned report.

Two consequences to expect. The file size will change, sometimes downwards and sometimes upwards, because a rebuilt PDF re-encodes its internal structure: a file that was inefficiently written gets smaller and a heavily optimised one can grow. The cleaned file is also written as PDF 1.4, which every reader from the last twenty years opens without trouble, and which is what lets the tool guarantee that no metadata is left hiding in a compressed section of the file. The visible pages are identical either way.

Why people remove metadata from a PDF

Almost nobody thinks about this until something forces them to. These are the situations that send people looking for a metadata remover.

Sending a document outside the organization. The author field carries whatever name the account was set up with, which is often a personal name on a document meant to come from a company. Law firms, agencies and consultancies clean PDFs as a matter of routine before anything goes to a client or a counterparty, because the alternative is a partner discovering their name on a filing they never touched.

Publishing anything anonymously or on behalf of a group. A whistleblower report, a community submission or a document from a small campaign should not name the one person who happened to type it. Metadata has deanonymized more documents than any other single mistake, precisely because people check the visible page and forget the file.

Bidding, tendering and competitive submissions. Creation and modification timestamps show how long a proposal really took and when it was finished, and the producer string can reveal which template or which piece of pricing software was behind it. Buyers do read these. Clearing them removes a set of signals you gain nothing from sharing.

Reusing a template. When a contract or a report is built from an old file, the metadata usually still names the previous client, the original author and a creation date from years earlier. It is the classic way an old customer name ends up travelling into a new proposal.

Setting the fields properly instead of clearing them. Document management systems, publishing platforms and journal submission portals frequently index on the title and author fields. In those cases the goal is not an empty file but a correct one, which is what the edit mode is for: write the real title and the organization name, and drop everything else.

Common questions about removing PDF metadata

How to remove metadata from a PDF file

Upload the file to the tool at the top of this page, choose Remove all metadata, then download the cleaned copy. The document is rebuilt from its page content, so the original title, author, subject, keywords, creator, producer and timestamps are gone rather than hidden, and the XMP packet goes with them.

How do I remove properties and personal information from a PDF?

The Windows right click route that works on Office files is unreliable on PDFs: the dialog opens, but the Apply button is often greyed out and the fields survive. Use a tool that rebuilds the PDF instead, either the uploader above, Acrobat Pro with Sanitize document, or a command line utility such as exiftool.

How do I remove metadata from a PDF in Adobe Acrobat?

In Acrobat Pro, open All tools, choose Redact a PDF, then Sanitize document and Remove all. That clears metadata along with scripts, attachments, hidden layers and stored form data. Remove hidden information is the selective version of the same feature. Neither one exists in the free Reader.

How do I remove metadata from a PDF on a Mac?

macOS has no built in way to do it. The Preview inspector shows metadata but will not edit it, and the Print then Save as PDF workaround is unreliable because Quartz copies most of the original fields into the new file. Use the uploader above, exiftool through Homebrew, or Acrobat Pro.

Does removing metadata change the content of the PDF?

No. The pages, the layout and the selectable text stay as they were, which we verified against files from 1 to 276 pages. What changes is the file structure: the document is written out fresh, so the file size moves in either direction and the internal object numbering is different.

Can removed PDF metadata be recovered?

Not from a file this tool has rewritten. Because the document is rebuilt rather than patched, the old Info dictionary and XMP packet are never carried into the new file, so there are no orphaned bytes to recover. Tools that only append a change leave the previous values readable in the file.

What is the difference between removing metadata and redacting a PDF?

Removing metadata clears the hidden fields that describe the document, such as the author name and the software that made it. Redaction removes information from the visible page itself. If a name appears in the body text of the document, stripping metadata will not touch it and you need redaction.

How do I change the author of a PDF?

Switch the tool above to Edit the fields, type the name you want in the Author box, and download the result. The original author value is destroyed in the rewrite rather than left behind it, which is the difference between editing metadata properly and simply typing over it in a viewer.

Can I remove metadata from several PDFs at once?

Not on this page, which handles one file per run. For a folder of documents, exiftool with the all equals nothing switch will clear an entire directory in a single command, and Acrobat Pro can run Sanitize document as an Action across a batch. Both are the right tool once you are past a few dozen files.

Does removing metadata make a PDF anonymous?

It removes one large source of identifying information, not all of them. Text in the document body, a signature image, tracked changes carried over from a word processor, and embedded fonts licensed to a named organization can all identify a source. Treat metadata removal as one step of several, not as the whole job.

Before and after you clean a file

If you want to see what a document is disclosing before you decide to strip it, the PDF metadata viewer reads every field without changing anything, and it is the right first stop when you are auditing a file rather than publishing it. To measure the contents instead of the file properties, the PDF word counter returns the word total, the PDF character counter reports characters with and without spaces, and the PDF page counter gives the page total on its own. If the producer string pointed you at a typography problem, the PDF font finder lists every font the file declares and flags the ones that are not embedded.

And once the file itself is sorted out, the point of a document is usually the material inside it. You can turn the same PDF into a quiz in about a minute, or build a larger question bank from a long report or a textbook chapter.