DOCX

Remove Word document metadata

Up to 100 files at once. Mixed formats are fine.

Removing metadata from a Word document clears the author, whoever last saved it, the company, the template it came from, the revision number and the total editing time — a running count of how long the document has been open across its whole life. The text and formatting are untouched. Drop a .docx above; it is rewritten in your browser.

  • Where it runsIn your browser. A file you are stripping for privacy is never uploaded.
  • What is removedCamera, location, author, software and timestamps written into the DOCX.
  • What staysThe content itself, untouched and at the same quality — this is not a re-encode.

Remove Word document metadata

What a DOCX carries besides the words

A .docx is a ZIP archive, and two small files inside it hold the properties. One has the author, the person who last saved it, the title, the revision number and both timestamps. The other has the company, the manager, the application that wrote it, the template it was based on, and the total editing time.

That last field surprises people. It is a cumulative count of minutes the document has been open for editing, across every session since it was created — a number that says whether a submission took four hours or four minutes.

The template and the company name

A document built from an organisation's template names that template, which names the organisation — including when the document was meant to look like it was drafted from scratch. The company field is filled from the Office installation and follows the file wherever it goes.

The "last saved by" field is the one that causes trouble most often. A document drafted by one person, reviewed by another and sent by a third names all three to anyone who opens the properties dialog, which is a longer answer than most senders intended to give.

What this does not remove

Tracked changes and comments. They live in the document body rather than in its properties, so they survive — and they name their authors. Accept or reject them and delete the comments in Word before sending, because a metadata cleaner cannot tell an edit you wanted to keep from one you did not.

The embedded preview image *is* removed. It is a picture of the first page stored inside the file, it survives Office's own "remove document properties" command, and it is one of the more surprising things a supposedly cleaned document can still contain.

Unaccepted tracked changes are the classic failure

If changes were made with tracking on and never accepted, the original wording is still in the file — not hidden, just displayed differently depending on the view setting. Anyone receiving the document can switch that setting.

Documents sent to clients, opposing counsel and journalists have repeatedly turned out to contain the negotiation that produced them. Accepting or rejecting every change before sending is the fix, and it is a different operation from clearing metadata — which is why this page says so rather than implying a strip covers it.

Hidden text is a formatting flag, not a removal

Word can mark text as hidden, and hidden text does not display or print normally. It remains in `document.xml` in full, as ordinary characters with an attribute beside them. The same applies to white-on-white text and to content inside a collapsed heading.

None of these are deletions and none are reached by clearing document properties. If something must not arrive with the file, it has to be deleted from the document — and converting to PDF is the reliable confirmation, because a PDF writes only what is actually drawn.

Comments, and the names attached to them

Every comment carries the name of whoever wrote it and when, and a resolved comment is frequently still in the file rather than gone. A document that has been through internal review can carry a complete list of who objected to what.

Deleting comments is a document operation rather than a metadata one, and the two are easy to conflate because both live under a menu called something like Inspect Document. It is worth doing deliberately and confirming afterwards rather than assuming a single sweep covered it.

How to remove metadata from a Word document

  1. Drop your Word document onto this page, or click to choose one.
  2. Look at what was found before anything is removed.
  3. Remove it and download. The content of the file is untouched.

Removing Word document metadata: common questions

Does the document still open normally?

Yes. The property files are replaced with empty ones of the correct shape rather than deleted, so every internal reference still resolves and Word opens the file without the repair prompt that a missing part would cause.

Does this remove tracked changes and comments?

No. Those are part of the document content, not its properties, and they carry their authors' names with them. Deal with them in Word first — a tool that silently accepted all your tracked changes would be making an editorial decision on your behalf.

Does it work on .doc as well?

Not yet. The old .doc format is a completely different container from before the XML era, and it needs a different reader. Save the file as .docx first — Word will do it — and then clean it here.

Is the file uploaded?

No. The file is rewritten inside your browser and never leaves your device — which is the only arrangement that makes sense for a tool whose job is to remove information you would rather not share.

How do I know it worked?

The page lists what it found before the removal and inspects the result afterwards, so you watch the list go empty. You can also check independently: the properties dialog of whatever application opens the file will show the same thing.

Sometimes the better answer is a different format — especially for a photograph stored as DOCX.