In short
This strips the standard metadata from a PDF — the Info dictionary and the XMP packet — entirely in your browser using pure-JavaScript pdf-lib. That clears author, title, subject, keywords, the creating application and the creation/modification timestamps, then re-saves the file. It's honest about scope: it targets standard document metadata and does not guarantee the removal of every embedded trace. Nothing is uploaded — the Network tab proves it.
Where a PDF hides metadata
A PDF records descriptive data in two standard places. TheInfo dictionary is the classic set of fields:Author, Title, Subject,Keywords, Creator, Producer, and the CreationDate/ModDate timestamps. TheXMP packet is an XML block carrying the same information plus whatever the authoring software chose to add — Acrobat, InDesign, Word export and design tools all write here. This tool clears both, which removes the metadata the overwhelming majority of viewers, search tools and inspectors read.
The honest caveat: what can persist
We won't pretend stripping the standard metadata makes a document forensically anonymous. Emptying the Info dictionary and XMP is the right, expected operation, but a PDF can carry identifying data in places this pass doesn't reach: EXIF data inside embedded images, information tucked into object streams, hiddenlayers or annotations, and — most obviously — anything printed into the visible content of a page itself. If your threat model is real (whistleblowing, legal, safety), the surest route is to flatten the document to images and rebuild it, and to review the result. This tool removes standard metadata cleanly; it does not, and cannot honestly, promise more.
Why no-upload is the whole point here
Removing identifying metadata is a privacy action — so uploading the file to a server to do it would be self-defeating: the original, fully metadata-tagged document would land on infrastructure you can't inspect before anything was stripped. This tool never takes that step. pdf-lib runs in your tab, the file is read from disk and rewritten locally, and no request carries your bytes. Open DevTools, watch the Network tab, and confirm the file stays on your machine.
Encrypted or damaged files
An encrypted PDF must be decrypted before its metadata can be rewritten — the tool detects encryption and points you to Unlock PDF first. If instead a file fails to parse, it may be structurally damaged, and stripping can only rewrite a document it can read. Looks damaged? Diagnose & repair it, then clean the repaired copy here.