Free web tool
Metadata Cleaner
Remove author names, GPS positions, camera details, comment authors and edit history from photos, PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument and video files. Cover faces or text in a picture. Strip invisible characters from pasted text. Everything runs in your browser. Your files are never uploaded.
Drop files or a folder here
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, TIFF, SVG, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, ODT, ODS, ODP, MP4 and MOV. You can also paste a picture with Ctrl or Cmd V.
Options
Bytes of your files sent anywhere: 0
Drop a picture here
JPG, PNG, WebP or GIF. You can also paste a picture.
Covers become part of the pixels, so they cannot be lifted off later. The saved picture is redrawn from pixels, so it carries no metadata either. Solid black is the safest cover. Pixelation is weaker on small areas.
Files are read and rewritten in this tab, in a background worker. The only requests the page makes are for its own scripts. Your files and text are never sent anywhere.
What it removes
- Photos (JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, TIFF). EXIF, including camera make and model, serial numbers, date taken and GPS position. XMP and IPTC captions and bylines, comments, embedded thumbnails and Content Credentials. Pixels are not decoded or re-encoded, so quality does not change. The rotation tag is kept by default so a portrait photo does not turn sideways.
- PDF. The document properties (author, title, subject, keywords, creator, producer, dates), the XMP packet, the file ID and private application data. Comment and markup authors. Photo metadata inside embedded JPEGs. Old versions of edited content that some PDF writers leave inside the file.
- Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OpenDocument. Author, last saved by, company, manager, template, title and the custom properties. The preview thumbnail. Names and dates on comments and tracked changes. The people list, editing-session ids, the attached template path, the folder an Excel workbook was saved in and the printer name. Photo metadata inside embedded pictures.
- Video (MP4, MOV). Title, artist, comment, device, software, GPS position and recording times. The video and sound are not re-encoded, so it plays exactly as before and large files finish in a moment.
- SVG. Editor settings, local file paths, author metadata and comments from Inkscape and Illustrator. The drawing itself is not touched.
- Text. Zero-width characters, text-direction controls, hidden tag characters, soft hyphens, control characters and odd spaces. These break LaTeX builds and can carry instructions a reader cannot see.
Cleaning a manuscript for double-blind review
- Clean the PDF you will upload. This removes the author and producer fields that reviewers can see in the document properties.
- Clean any Word or Excel supplement the same way, and leave the rename option on so comment authors read “Author”.
- Open the result in a PDF reader and check File, Properties. The author field should be empty. Download the report if the journal or your institution wants a record of what was removed.
- Metadata is only one way authors are identified. Names in acknowledgements, self-citations and file paths in figures are content. Anonymity Check reads the text for those.
Questions
Are my files uploaded?
No. The page reads the file with your browser, rewrites it in memory in a background worker and hands you the result as a download. There is no server step. The meter on the page counts the requests it makes while it works, so you can see this for yourself. The only requests the page makes are for its own scripts, such as the PDF library when you add your first PDF.
How do I know the metadata is really gone?
Each result is read a second time with the same reader that found the fields in the first place, and the page says what, if anything, is still there. It also checks that the cleaned file still opens: pictures are decoded, PDFs are reloaded, and Office and OpenDocument files are unzipped and their XML is checked. If a check fails, the file is not offered for download. For your own check, open the cleaned file's properties dialog, or run a tool such as ExifTool on it.
Does it change my photos or reduce their quality?
No. JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and TIFF are edited at the byte level: the metadata blocks are cut out and the image data is copied as it was. The file gets a little smaller and looks identical. Color profiles are kept so colors do not shift. The cover tool is the exception, because it has to change pixels, and it redraws the picture to do it.
Why does it keep the rotation tag?
Phones store portrait photos sideways and add a tag that says which way is up. Removing every tag makes those photos appear rotated. The tag says nothing about you, so it is kept as a one-field replacement for the original block. Untick Keep photo rotation to drop it.
What does it not remove?
Anything that is content. Names written in a document's text, headers and footers, watermarks, visible stamps, and what a photo shows. It does not touch the file system dates your computer keeps, and it does not change pixels outside the cover tool, so a face or a street sign is still there until you cover it. Attached files inside a PDF, custom XML parts in an Office file and separate GPS or motion tracks inside a video (some action cameras and drones record them) are reported and left in place, because removing them needs more than cutting out a block.
Can I keep comments and tracked changes?
Yes. They are always kept. Only the names, initials and timestamps on them are replaced, so reviewers can still see what changed but not who made the change. Untick the rename option to keep the names. You can also keep the document title, or set the author to a name of your choice, such as “Anonymous”.
What are the checksums for?
They are SHA-256 fingerprints of the file before and after. Put the report with your submission records and you can show later which file was cleaned and what was in it. The report lists the removed values, so keep it apart from the cleaned files.
How large a file can it handle?
Up to 200 MB per file, and 600 MB for video. It is limited by your device's memory, not a server. Files are cleaned one at a time in a background worker, so the page stays responsive, and a progress bar shows each step.
What about password-protected or old-format files?
Password-protected PDFs are refused because the file cannot be rewritten without the password. Remove the password in your PDF reader, then clean the result. The old .doc, .xls and .ppt formats are not supported. Open them in Word, Excel or PowerPoint and save as .docx, .xlsx or .pptx.
What about HEIC photos and other formats?
Not yet. Export a HEIC photo as JPG on your phone or Mac first. BigTIFF, AVI, MKV and WebM are not supported either.
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