Privacy guide
How to Remove Personal Metadata from a PDF Before Sharing
A PDF can carry an author name, company name, title, keywords, and creation dates alongside its visible pages. Remove that document information before publishing or sending a file when those details should stay private.
Last updated: 2026-08-27
Steps
Inspect the original metadata
Open View PDF Metadata and check the title, author, creator, producer, keywords, and dates.
Remove the document information
Open Remove PDF Metadata, choose the same file, and confirm the cleanup.
Download a new copy
Download the cleaned PDF. The pages remain unchanged.
Check before sharing
Use View PDF Metadata again to confirm that the fields you wanted removed are no longer present.
What metadata can reveal
Metadata may identify the person or software that created a document. It can also expose an internal title, subject, or dates that do not belong in a public copy.
Metadata is separate from the visible text and images, so checking the page content is not enough.
Verify the cleaned copy
After removing metadata, open the downloaded file and inspect its properties with the View PDF Metadata tool. This gives you a second check before sharing.
If visible sensitive text remains on a page, metadata removal will not remove it. Use a dedicated redaction workflow for that problem.
Related tools
- Edit PDF metadataInspect and change the title, author, subject, and keywords stored in a PDF.
- View PDF MetadataSee the title, author, subject, and keywords stored in a PDF.
- Remove PDF MetadataStrip the title, author, and other hidden data from a PDF.