Why does Chrome or Edge show an old title in the tab bar even after I rename my PDF file?

Web browsers and Adobe Acrobat read the internal PDF Title metadata field from the document header rather than the operating system filename. Clearing or updating the Title field in this tool makes the browser tab match your actual filename.

Does removing PDF metadata change the fonts, layout, or quality of my document?

Not at all. Metadata lives in a separate catalog dictionary at the root of the PDF container. Wiping or editing those fields leaves every page, image, font, and clickable link 100% untouched.

Is this suitable for preparing a double-blind peer review manuscript?

Yes for the file properties: clicking Wipe All Metadata removes your Author name, institution software tags, and creation timestamps from the PDF header. Just remember to also remove your name from the visible title page before exporting.

Can I add custom Author, Title, and Keywords instead of wiping everything blank?

Yes. Every metadata field in the left panel is editable. You can type a clean publication title, organization author name, subject description, and comma-separated keywords before saving.

What is the difference between the Creator and Producer fields in a PDF?

Creator records the original application where the document was written (such as Microsoft Word or Figma), while Producer records the engine that converted the file into PDF format (such as macOS Quartz PDFContext or LibreOffice).

Does removing metadata also remove EXIF data stored inside photos embedded in the PDF?

This tool scrubs the PDF document-level catalog and info dictionary. If you are building a PDF from raw smartphone photos that contain embedded EXIF GPS tags, run the photos through the EXIF Privacy Scrubber before converting them to PDF.

Remove PDF Metadata & Edit Properties Online

Every time you export a document from Microsoft Word, Google Docs, macOS Quartz, or Adobe InDesign, the software quietly writes your computer username, organization, exact software build, and creation timestamps into the file header. Use this tool to remove PDF metadata in one click - or edit the Title, Author, Subject, and Keywords fields cleanly - directly inside your browser before sharing the file.

What hidden properties lurk inside a standard PDF header

When you open a PDF in a normal reader, you see the visible pages. When a recipient - or a search engine crawler - presses Ctrl + D (Document Properties) or inspects the raw file header, they see the internal /Info dictionary and XMP packet.

That hidden dictionary routinely exposes embarrassing or confidential details:

Author: Often defaults to the OS login name or previous employee who created the template five years ago (for example, j_smith_personal_macbook).
Title: Frequently still says DRAFT_v1_cheap_client_quote.docx even though you renamed the file on your desktop to Final-Proposal.pdf. And because Chrome, Edge, and Safari display the internal PDF Title metadata in the browser tab bar instead of the filename, your client sees that old draft name at the top of their screen!
Creator & Producer: Reveals the exact pipeline used to generate the document, such as Microsoft® Word 2021 or LibreOffice 7.6.
CreationDate & ModDate: Shows the exact minute and timezone when the file was first created and last modified.

How to remove PDF metadata or edit document properties

Drop your PDF file into the upload box or click Select PDF File(s) to parse its internal catalog locally.
Inspect the Detected Metadata Table to see the current Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator App, Producer Engine, and timestamps stored inside the file.
To anonymize the file completely, click Wipe All Metadata (Zero-Trace), which clears every text field and neutralizes identifying tags.
Or, if you want to set clean professional properties (such as fixing the browser tab title), type your desired Title, Author, Subject, and Keywords into the editor boxes, then click Save & Download Clean PDF.

Inspector and editor features in the workspace

This utility combines a forensic property viewer, a one-click privacy scrubber, and a metadata editor in one view.

Instant before-and-after property inspection: Reads the raw PDFDocument catalog and displays every populated metadata key before you make changes, so you know exactly what was hidden in the file.
One-click Zero-Trace Scrub: Clears Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator, and Producer fields in a single action so you can publish reports, peer-review papers, or legal filings anonymously.
Browser Tab Title fixer: Updating or clearing the internal Title field immediately fixes the common annoyance where opening a renamed PDF in Chrome or Edge still shows an old embarrassing document title in the browser tab.
Comma-separated Keywords array editor: Properly formats your keyword list into the PDF catalog array specification for enterprise document management systems.
100% lossless page stream preservation: Modifying the /Info catalog dictionary does not touch a single font, vector path, hyperlink, or image pixel on your pages.

Worked example: fixing a renamed client proposal before emailing

Suppose an agency account manager exports a 12-page quote from Word and renames the file on Windows Explorer to 2026-Enterprise-Retainer-Proposal.pdf (1,450 KB).

Before attaching it to an email, they drop it into the PDF Metadata Remover and look at the Inspector panel:

Filename on disk: 2026-Enterprise-Retainer-Proposal.pdf
Internal Title tag: Copy of Acme_LowMargin_Template_OLD.docx
Internal Author tag: kevin_laptop_home
Internal Creator tag: Acrobat PDFMaker 23 for Word
Creation Date: 2024-11-03 02:14:09 UTC

Instead of sending a file that displays Copy of Acme_LowMargin_Template_OLD.docx in the client's browser tab:

They type 2026 Enterprise Retainer Proposal into the Title field and Shift Digital Agency into the Author field, and clear theCreator/Producer strings.
They click Save & Download Clean PDF.
The exported 2026-Enterprise-Retainer-Proposal-clean.pdf is saved in 0.2 seconds with the exact same 1,450 KB size and 100% identical visual pages, now displaying a clean professional title in every PDF viewer.

What metadata scrubbing does and does not remove

Clearing document metadata scrubs the header dictionary (Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator, Producer, and dates). It does not alter visible text typed onto the pages themselves.

If your name, email address, or company logo is visibly printed in the header or body paragraphs of Page 1 - for instance, in a double-blind academic peer review submission - scrubbing the metadata dictionary alone is not enough; someone reading Page 1 will still see your name on the page. For double-blind academic papers or FOIA releases where you need to remove both hidden header properties and visible names on the page, run the file through the PDF Redactor first to black out or white out the visible text, and then scrub the metadata dictionary.

Privacy and local browser execution

Your PDF is parsed and rewritten locally in your browser's memory using pdf-lib and PDF.js. No files, usernames, or metadata tags are ever transmitted to any server.

Complete list of hidden PDF metadata structures wiped during cleaning

A PDF file stores identifying information in two separate internal locations—and wiping only one of them leaves your trace behind:

The Document Information Dictionary (/Info): The classic PDF 1.x key-value dictionary holding /Title, /Author, /Subject, /Keywords, /Creator (the original source app, such as Microsoft Word - Legal_Draft_v4_JohnSmith.docx), /Producer (the PDF engine and OS version, such as macOS Version 15.1 Quartz PDFContext), /CreationDate, and /ModDate.
The Extensible Metadata Platform (/Metadata XMP XML stream): Introduced by Adobe for PDF/A and Creative Cloud workflows, this embedded XML packet stores Dublin Core (dc:creator, dc:title), XMP document IDs (xmpMM:DocumentID, xmpMM:InstanceID), and edit history timestamps even when the classic /Info fields appear blank in basic viewers. Our cleaner zeroes out the classic /Info dictionary fields and strips the root catalog /Metadata XMP stream together.

Related privacy and sanitization tools

To strip GPS coordinates and camera serial numbers from JPG, PNG, and WebP photos, use the EXIF Privacy Scrubber. To permanently black out visible SSNs, emails, and names on PDF pages, open the PDF Redactor & Sanitizer or ID & Aadhaar Masker. Developers sharing network logs can scrub tokens in the HAR Sanitizer & Redactor.

PDF Metadata Remover & Editor