Reveal the hidden metadata inside any PDF — author, creator application, creation date, PDF version, and more. Nothing is uploaded.
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Every PDF file can contain hidden metadata — structured information embedded in the document that is not visible when reading it normally. This includes the document title, author name, the software that created it, and the exact dates it was created and last modified.
For privacy, metadata may reveal your name, username, or organisation name embedded by the creating software — many organisations strip metadata before publishing PDFs publicly. For verification, creation and modification dates help establish document provenance. For document management, proper metadata makes PDFs searchable and easier to organise.
All metadata extraction runs in your browser using PDF.js. Your file is never uploaded to any server. Safe for confidential documents.
PDF metadata can inadvertently reveal sensitive personal and organisational information. When you create a document in Microsoft Word and export it as PDF, the Author field is automatically populated with your Windows username or the name registered in Microsoft Office. The Creator field identifies the exact software version used, which can reveal your operating system and software inventory to recipients. The Creation Date and Modification Date reveal your work patterns and whether a document was prepared in advance or created recently.
High-profile incidents of metadata revealing sensitive information include: early drafts of government documents leaked through metadata revealing who wrote specific sections, legal filings where opposing counsel discovered document revision history through metadata, and academic papers where anonymous peer review was compromised when author names appeared in Creator fields. Before publishing or distributing any PDF, always check and strip metadata if the information could be sensitive.
To remove metadata before sharing a PDF: in Adobe Acrobat Pro, use File → Properties → Description and clear the fields, then use Tools → Redact → Sanitize Document for a thorough removal. In LibreOffice, use File → Properties and clear personal data fields before exporting. For a free command-line approach, ExifTool can strip all metadata with a single command. Alternatively, printing the PDF to a new PDF file via your operating system's print dialog creates a fresh document without inherited metadata.
Modern PDFs may contain two metadata formats: the traditional Info Dictionary (the fields this tool displays) and the newer XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) metadata embedded in the PDF's XML data. XMP supports a much richer set of metadata fields including copyright information, IPTC fields, and custom namespace data. The Info Dictionary is what most tools read first; XMP is used by professional publishing workflows and digital asset management systems.