What is PDF metadata — and why remove it?
Every PDF carries information that you don’t see on the page: the author’s name (often the user name of the computer), the program and version used, creation and modification dates, the company’s template name, and sometimes an XMP block with a complete editing history. Photos inserted into a document can still contain the camera model and the GPS location where they were taken.
PDFs can also contain earlier versions of themselves: when a file is saved “incrementally”, the old content stays inside and can be recovered. Comments keep the names of their authors, and attached files travel along unnoticed. Before you send a contract, an application, a report or a court document, it is worth checking what else goes with it.
ToolCMB shows you all of this and removes it inside your browser — the file never leaves your device. The document is rebuilt from scratch: only the pages and the parts you want to keep are written, so old versions and orphaned data disappear as well, and the document gets a new random ID.
ToolCMB vs typical online metadata tools
| Feature | ToolCMB Metadata Remover | Typical online tools |
|---|---|---|
| Files uploaded to a server | Never — runs in your browser | Yes |
| Report of what was found | Yes, per file | Rare |
| XMP metadata and editing history | Removed | Often left in the file |
| Earlier saved versions | Removed | Usually kept |
| EXIF / GPS in embedded photos | Removed (lossless) | Rare |
| Comment authors anonymised | Yes | Rare |
| Batch processing, no sign-up | Yes, free | Often premium only |
Tips
- Use Anonymise for comments to keep review notes but hide who wrote them.
- Digitally signed PDFs: any change invalidates the signature — clean the file before signing.
- Want smaller files too? Run the cleaned PDFs through the PDF Compressor.
- Sharing only part of a document? Remove pages first with the PDF Page Deleter.