Document Metadata Scrubber

See and clear the hidden author, company, and edit history buried inside a PDF or Word/Excel/PowerPoint file — entirely in your browser, before you send it to someone else.

Drop in a PDF, .docx, .xlsx, or .pptx file and this tool reads out the metadata actually stored inside it — author, last-modified-by, company, software version, creation/edit dates, even a PDF's embedded XMP block — in a plain before/after table. Edit any field or clear it in one click, then download a cleaned copy. Nothing is uploaded; the file never leaves your browser tab.

What it does

Document Metadata Scrubber is a single downloaded HTML file that reads and rewrites the hidden properties stored inside PDFs and Office Open XML files (.docx/.xlsx/.pptx). For PDFs, it reads the standard info dictionary (Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator, Producer, Creation/Modification dates) plus, separately, any embedded XMP metadata packet — a second, often-forgotten metadata block some PDF exporters (Adobe, Office) embed alongside the fields most tools only check. For Office files, it opens the zip archive, finds docProps/core.xml (author, last-modified-by, title, comments, category…) and docProps/app.xml (company, manager, application, app version), shows what's actually in them, and lets you edit or clear each field individually before rewriting the archive.

Who it's for: a paralegal reusing an old Word contract template who needs the previous client's name gone from the file properties, not just the visible text; a freelance photographer sending a PDF proposal who doesn't want their own name or old client's project name showing up in "File > Properties" on the recipient's end; a small business owner handing off a spreadsheet template who doesn't want the last three clients' names sitting in its edit history; anyone who's ever been quietly embarrassed by an old "Author" or "Company" field showing through on a document that was supposed to look freshly made.

What it does not do: it doesn't touch the document's visible content — text, formatting, pages, cell values, slides are all byte-for-byte the same, only the properties are edited; it doesn't open password-protected PDFs or encrypted Office files (they're detected and clearly flagged, not decrypted); it doesn't scrub metadata embedded inside images pasted into the document (a photo's own EXIF data survives being embedded in a docx — pair this with EXIF/GPS Stripper on the original photos first if that matters); and it doesn't scan custom/organization-defined document properties beyond the standard core/app property sets, or per-object XMP on individual embedded PDF images — only the document-level metadata most tools (including Word's own Inspector) check.

Features

• Reads and displays a PDF's real info-dictionary fields (Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator, Producer, dates) plus its separate embedded XMP metadata stream, if present
• Reads and displays a Word/Excel/PowerPoint file's author, last-modified-by, title, comments, category, company, manager, and application/version fields from docProps/core.xml and docProps/app.xml
• Every field is individually editable or clearable — not just an all-or-nothing "remove everything" switch
• Clearing a field removes it entirely from the file (not just sets it to an empty string), matching what Word's own "Remove Personal Information" does
• Shows a real before → after comparison table so you can see exactly what changed before you rely on the download
• Zero uploads: pdf-lib is bundled directly into this one file, and a hand-rolled zip reader/writer handles Office files — no CDN calls, no network requests once the page is open

Browser support

Verified by actually loading real test files with known metadata (a PDF with an XMP stream, a .docx with populated core.xml and app.xml, a large 150-page PDF, a 3,000-paragraph .docx), running the full read → edit → scrub → download flow, and independently re-opening the downloaded output with separate Python libraries (`pypdf`, `python-docx`, `openpyxl`) to confirm the metadata was actually gone and the file was still genuinely valid — not inferred from reading the code.

FAQ

Does my file get uploaded anywhere?
No. This is a single HTML file with pdf-lib built directly into it, plus this tool's own zip reader/writer for Office files. It makes zero network requests once open in your browser — your document never leaves your computer.

Which file types are supported?
PDF, .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx. Other Office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt — the older binary formats) aren't supported; only the modern Open XML (zip-based) formats are.

Will the cleaned file still open normally in Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Acrobat?
Yes — verified directly, not assumed. Every test file run through this tool (including a 150-page PDF and a 3,000-paragraph Word document) was re-opened afterward with independent tools (`pypdf`, `python-docx`, `openpyxl`, plus a raw zip-integrity check) to confirm the output wasn't just "downloadable" but genuinely valid: correct page count, correct paragraph text, correct zip structure. One real bug was caught this way during testing — an early version wrote a duplicate XML declaration into the rewritten Office metadata file, which made the cleaned .docx fail to open in `python-docx` with an XML syntax error. It was found by this exact verify-with-a-second-library step, not by eyeballing the output, and fixed before shipping.

Does this touch metadata inside images embedded in the document?
No. A photo's own EXIF/GPS data isn't touched by this tool if that photo is pasted into a Word doc or PDF — only the document-level properties are scrubbed. Use EXIF/GPS Stripper on photos separately before embedding them if that matters.

What happens to my file if I lose the download?
Nothing is kept anywhere to recover it from — no account, no cloud copy, no history. Reload the page and everything in the tab's memory is gone. Re-open your original source file and run it through again if you need the result a second time.

Can I use this for client or commercial work?
Yes. One-time purchase, personal and commercial use included — see License/usage terms below.

Is there a subscription?
No. One-time purchase, yours to keep and reuse offline forever.

Try it free in your browser → Open the free version of this tool — runs entirely in your browser, nothing uploaded.