Which metadata fields are removed?

Every standard Info dictionary field — Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator, Producer, CreationDate, and ModDate — is cleared, and the XMP metadata stream referenced from the document catalog is deleted. The dates are reset to the Unix epoch so no real authoring time leaks.

Does this change the visible content of my PDF?

No. Only the document's hidden property fields and XMP packet are touched. Pages, text, images, and layout are preserved exactly.

Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?

No. The file is parsed and re-saved in your browser using the pdf-lib library. The document never leaves your device, so confidential files are safe.

Why also remove the XMP stream?

Modern PDFs store metadata twice — once in the legacy Info dictionary and once in an XMP packet. Clearing only the Info fields would leave author and creator data behind in XMP, so both are removed.

Will the cleaned file open everywhere?

Yes. The PDF is re-saved as a standard document with object streams, so it opens in any compliant reader. Only the metadata is gone.

What is the PDF Metadata Remover?

Clear the Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator, Producer, and date fields from a PDF, plus remove the XMP metadata stream, then re-save it. Runs entirely in your browser — documents never reach a server. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

PDF Metadata Remover

Name: PDF Metadata Remover
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Your PDF knows who made it

Open the Properties panel of almost any PDF and you will usually find the author’s name, the software that created it, and the exact date it was written. That information is fine internally but often something you do not want to ship to a client, publish online, or attach to a public filing. This tool wipes it cleanly.

How it works

A PDF carries metadata in two places. The Info dictionary is the legacy key/value block with fields like /Author and /CreationDate. The XMP metadata stream is a modern XML packet referenced from the document catalog under /Metadata, and it frequently duplicates the same author and creator details.

The remover:

Loads the PDF with pdf-lib and reads the existing Info fields so it can show you exactly what was there.
Overwrites every Info field with an empty value and resets CreationDate/ModDate to a neutral epoch value.
Deletes the /Metadata entry from the catalog so the XMP packet is dropped too.
Re-saves and offers the sanitised PDF for download.

What metadata typically reveals

The fields in a typical PDF’s Info dictionary are more revealing than most people expect:

Author: usually the operating system display name of whoever created the document, or the account name if it was generated by software.
Creator: the application that produced the original file (for example, “Microsoft Word”, “LibreOffice Writer”, or an internal document management system).
Producer: the PDF conversion tool or library that generated the final PDF file from the original format.
CreationDate and ModDate: precise timestamps, usually including timezone, that can reveal when a document was first written and when it was last edited — down to the second.
Subject and Keywords: sometimes populated automatically by enterprise content-management systems with internal classification tags.

For a client-facing proposal, a court filing, or a document submitted anonymously, each of these fields is a potential leak of information you did not intend to share.

The XMP problem: why cleaning one store is not enough

Many tools that claim to strip PDF metadata only clear the Info dictionary, because that is the simple, visible field list. However, the PDF/A and PDF/UA standards require an XMP metadata stream for conformance, and software like Adobe Acrobat, Illustrator, and InDesign writes XMP even for non-conformance-standard documents. The XMP packet is an XML structure containing dc:creator, xmp:CreateDate, pdf:Producer, and other Dublin Core and XMP namespace fields that mirror the Info dictionary entries exactly. Removing only the Info fields leaves a complete copy of the author and timestamp data in the XMP stream.

This tool removes both.

Tips and notes

Clear both, not one. A common mistake is editing only the Info fields in a desktop viewer while the XMP packet still names the original author. This tool handles both automatically.
Content is untouched. Text, images, form fields, and page order are preserved — only properties change.
Dates are neutralised, not blanked. PDF writers always emit a date, so the cleaned file shows the Unix epoch rather than your real authoring time.
For removing embedded image EXIF inside a PDF’s pictures, re-export those images separately; this tool targets document-level metadata.