BSDetector
Tools/Privacy & Utilities

PDF Metadata Viewer & Remover

See the metadata hiding in a PDF (author, software, dates), then remove it or edit it. Free, runs in your browser, no upload and no sign-up.

Drop a PDF here, or click to pick one

Any size your browser can hold. Everything runs on your device.

No upload, no server, no copy kept.

How it works

How the PDF metadata viewer reads the file

A PDF ends with a trailer that points at its Info dictionary through a line like /Info 12 0 R. The page reads the file as raw bytes, finds every /Info reference, including the ones in cross-reference streams, then jumps to each object and reads its string values. Text can be plain, escaped, hex or UTF-16, and dates come as D:20250314092653+01'00', which is turned into something a person can read.

Info dictionary vs XMP

PDF metadata lives in two places. The Info dictionary is the original 1990s key-value list: Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator, Producer, CreationDate, ModDate, plus anything the app felt like adding, such as Word's Company field. XMP is an XML packet in its own stream, added by Adobe in 2001, which repeats most of those fields and adds document and instance IDs. PDF 2.0 prefers XMP. Readers disagree about which to trust, so a clean file needs both gone.

Why the PDF metadata remover overwrites instead of deleting

Every object in a PDF is found through a cross-reference table that stores its exact byte offset. Delete ten bytes from the author name and every offset after it is wrong, and the file is broken. So nothing is deleted. (Jane Doe) becomes () followed by eight spaces, and the XMP stream is overwritten with an empty packet padded to the same length. Offsets and /Length values stay correct and the file size does not change by a byte.

How to edit PDF metadata in place

Edit mode uses the same trick. Your new Title, Author, Subject or Keywords is written into the span the old value occupied and padded with spaces. If it is longer than the original there is no room, and the page says so instead of corrupting the file. Clearing always fits.

Proof it worked

The output is fed back through the same parser before you download it. If it prints 0 fields left, there is nothing in the Info dictionary or the XMP packets for the next reader to find. If something survived, the table shows exactly what.

Where this stops

PDF 1.5 and later can pack small objects into compressed object streams. If the Info dictionary is inside one, it cannot be rewritten without re-compressing the stream and rebuilding the xref, which this page does not do; it tells you, and the re-save route below handles it. Encrypted PDFs are refused. Signed PDFs can be cleaned, but the signature will no longer validate. Metadata attached to individual images or pages is cleared when it is XMP, and ignored otherwise.

What PDF metadata reveals

Nobody reads PDF properties until the wrong person does. A contract that says it was created a week after the date on page one, a CV whose author is someone else, a leaked memo whose Title is the path to a folder on a named person's laptop. These are the fields that do the damage.

FieldWhat it gives away
Author, dc:creatorThe name on the account that wrote the source file. Often a full name, sometimes a Windows username.
CompanyWord copies the organisation from the Office licence. Handy for spotting a consultant’s template.
TitleFrequently the original file name or full path, like C:\Users\jdoe\Desktop\final_v7_REAL.docx.
Creator, xmp:CreatorToolThe app that made the source document, with version: Word for Microsoft 365, Canva, InDesign 19.2.
ProducerThe library that wrote the PDF: macOS Quartz, Skia, iText, Ghostscript. Tells you the operating system or the pipeline.
CreationDate vs ModDateWhen the document was first made and when it was last changed, with a time zone. A gap between them is a question.
xmpMM:DocumentIDA unique ID that survives edits and re-exports. Two PDFs with the same one came from the same source file.

Metadata is also what document forensics looks at first. A PDF claiming to be a 2019 bank statement but produced by a 2024 version of a web-to-PDF library has a problem that no amount of careful editing on the page will fix. The same goes for photos, where the camera and GPS tags do the talking: the photo metadata remover handles those.

How to view, edit and remove PDF metadata in other apps

Adobe Acrobat and Reader

View: File, Properties (Ctrl+D or Command-D), Description tab. Additional Metadata shows the XMP. Acrobat Pro can edit Title, Author, Subject and Keywords there. Remove: in Acrobat Pro, Redact, then Remove Hidden Information lists metadata, comments, hidden layers and more, and removes what you tick. Sanitize Document does all of it in one go and then saves a new file.

Preview on Mac

Tools, Show Inspector, or Command-I, shows Title, Author, Subject, Creator, Producer and the dates. You can add keywords there, and nothing else is editable. To shed the rest, use File, Print, then PDF, Save as PDF. The new file gets Quartz as its producer and today as its date. File, Export as PDF keeps more of the original, so it is not the one you want.

Word and LibreOffice exports

Fix it before the PDF exists. In Word, File, Info, Check for Issues, Inspect Document, then remove Document Properties and Personal Information. When saving as PDF, click Options and untick Document properties. In LibreOffice, clear the fields under File, Properties, and in Tools, Options, Security tick Remove personal information on saving before you use File, Export as PDF.

ExifTool and qpdf

View: exiftool -a -G1 file.pdf. Edit: exiftool -Title="Report" -Author= file.pdf. Remove: exiftool -all:all= file.pdf.One catch: ExifTool edits PDFs with an incremental update, so the old values are still in the file and can be restored. Follow it with qpdf --linearize file.pdf clean.pdf to rewrite the file without the old revision.

Print to PDF, the nuclear option

When a file is encrypted, stores its metadata in compressed object streams, or you just want to be sure, print it to a new PDF. Microsoft Print to PDF on Windows and Save as PDF on a Mac both build a fresh file from what is on the page. That is the re-save route mentioned above. You lose links, bookmarks, form fields and tags, and the printer adds its own producer line, which you can then clear here.
FAQ

Questions people ask

How do I view PDF metadata?

Drop the PDF onto the box above and every field in its Info dictionary and XMP packet is listed: title, author, subject, keywords, the program that made it, the PDF producer, creation and modification dates and the document ID. In Adobe Acrobat or the free Reader the same fields sit under File, Properties, Description. On a Mac, open the file in Preview and press Command-I.

How do I remove metadata from a PDF?

Load the file here and press Remove metadata. Every string in the Info dictionary is blanked and the XMP packet is overwritten, then the cleaned file is parsed again to prove nothing is left. In Acrobat Pro the equivalent is Redact, then Remove Hidden Information, or Tools, Protect, Sanitize Document. Printing to a new PDF also works, at the cost of links and form fields.

How do I edit PDF metadata?

Switch this page to Edit metadata and type new values for Title, Author, Subject and Keywords. The new text is written into the space the old value used, so it has to be the same length or shorter. Acrobat lets you change the same fields under File, Properties, Description, and ExifTool does it from the command line with exiftool -Title="New title" file.pdf.

Does a PDF have metadata?

Almost always. Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice, Acrobat, scanners and print drivers all write at least a Producer and a creation date, and most add the title and the author name from your account or the source document. Many also embed an XMP packet that repeats those fields and adds a unique document ID.

How do I check PDF metadata in Adobe Acrobat?

Open the file and choose File, then Properties, or press Ctrl+D (Command-D on a Mac). The Description tab shows Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Created, Modified, Application and PDF Producer. Additional Metadata opens the full XMP view. Acrobat Pro can edit the first four fields there; the Application and Producer lines are read-only.

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

Preview can show metadata with Command-I but cannot delete it. The built-in route is File, Print, then the PDF menu and Save as PDF, which writes a fresh file with macOS Quartz as the producer, though the title may carry over. The faster route is to drop the file on this page, which runs in Safari or any other browser without uploading it.

Is it safe to use an online PDF metadata remover?

It depends on where the file goes. Most online PDF tools upload your document to a server, which is an odd trade when the point is privacy. This page reads and rewrites the file inside your browser tab, so nothing is sent anywhere. You can check by turning off Wi-Fi after the page loads and using it offline.

Why does the old author name still show after I changed it?

A PDF can hold the same fields twice, once in the Info dictionary and once in the XMP packet, and readers pick whichever they trust more. Editors that save with incremental updates also leave the older Info dictionary in the file. This page clears every copy of the Info dictionary and every XMP stream it finds, which is why both groups show in the table.

Does removing PDF metadata change the document?

Not the part you see. Text, images, fonts, links and form fields are untouched, and the file size stays exactly the same because every removed value is replaced with spaces of the same length. That is deliberate: a PDF indexes its objects by byte offset, and keeping the offsets identical keeps the file valid.

Does Print to PDF remove metadata?

Mostly. Printing to a new PDF rebuilds the file from the page images and text, so the original author, document ID and XMP history do not come along. The printer adds its own producer string and a new date, and some drivers copy the document title. You also lose bookmarks, links, form fields and accessibility tags.

Can deleted PDF metadata be recovered?

Sometimes. PDF editors often save changes as an incremental update appended to the end of the file, so the old Info dictionary is still there, just no longer referenced. ExifTool works this way too and says so in its documentation. This page overwrites every copy it can find, and a Print to PDF or qpdf rewrite drops old revisions entirely.

How do I strip metadata from a PDF with ExifTool?

Run exiftool -all:all= file.pdf to clear the fields, then rewrite the file with qpdf --linearize file.pdf clean.pdf so the old values are not kept as a hidden revision. To only look, run exiftool -a -G1 file.pdf. To change a field, run exiftool -Author="" -Title="Report" file.pdf.