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Remove PDF Metadata

Remove PDF metadata before you share a file: the author, the apps that made it, the dates, and the XMP stream that often repeats them. You see what the file carried first, and the clean copy is ready right away.

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Your PDF

Choose a PDF or drop it here. One PDF, up to 100 MB.

    What is removed

    • Title, author, subject, and keywords
    • The apps that created and wrote the file
    • Creation and modification dates
    • The XMP metadata stream, which often repeats these and adds editing history
    Pages, text, images, links, and bookmarks stay as they are. The clean file is ready as soon as the PDF is read.

    Metadata found

    What the PDF says about itself will appear here
    1. Choose or drop a PDF on the left
    2. See what it carried
    3. Download the clean copy

    How to strip metadata from a PDF

    1. Choose a PDF or drop it on the box.
    2. Read the table: the Before column shows what the file says about itself.
    3. The clean copy is made at once. The After column shows every field removed.
    4. Download it. The file ends in -clean.pdf.

    How it works

    The tool opens the PDF with pdf-lib and removes three things:

    • the Info dictionary, which holds Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator, Producer, and the creation and modification dates;
    • every XMP metadata stream, on the document and on single pages. XMP is XML that design and office apps fill with names, tools, and sometimes editing history;
    • PieceInfo data that some apps leave behind to reopen the file in their own format.

    Those objects are removed from the saved file so the old values cannot sit unused in the bytes. Page content is copied as it is.

    Examples

    The sample report carries:

    • Title: Quarterly Field Report
    • Author: Alex Sample
    • Creator: Sample Writer 2.1, Producer: Utilza sample generator
    • Created 1 September 2026, modified 3 September 2026
    • An XMP stream of 449 bytes naming the author and the app again

    After cleaning, all of these are gone and the file is several hundred bytes smaller. A search for the author's name in the file's raw bytes finds nothing.

    Limitations

    • Names and dates written on the pages themselves, such as a signature line or a header, are part of the content and stay.
    • Metadata inside embedded images (for example EXIF in a photo) is not changed. Clean photos with the Image Metadata Remover before putting them in a PDF.
    • Password-protected PDFs can't be opened.

    Frequently asked questions

    What metadata does a PDF contain?

    Usually the title, the author's name, the app that created the document, the software that wrote the PDF, and the dates it was created and last changed. Many files also have an XMP block with the same details and sometimes an editing history.

    Does removing metadata change how my PDF looks?

    No. Only the properties are removed. Pages, text, images, links, and bookmarks are copied unchanged.

    Why is the clean PDF only a little smaller?

    Metadata is usually a few hundred bytes to a few kilobytes. The rest of the file is the pages, which stay the same.

    Can I clean Word files too?

    Yes, with the Document Metadata Remover, which handles DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, and OpenDocument files.

    Often used together with the PDF Metadata Remover.