How to Remove Your Name from a PDF’s Metadata

A PDF often carries your name in its hidden Author field, even when it appears nowhere on the page. Here is where it comes from, how to remove it in Word, LibreOffice, Acrobat, on a Mac or in your browser, and the places it hides that most tools miss.

By Deresaw Tools · Updated 3 October 2026

You send a CV as a PDF, or submit an anonymous review, a tender response or a report for a client who should not know which contractor wrote it. The page says nothing about you. The file properties say Author: Jane Smith, the program that made it, and the exact minute you last saved it.

That information sits in the PDF’s metadata. It is not shown when the document is read or printed, so most people never see it, but anyone can find it with File › Properties in a free PDF reader.

Where the name comes from

A PDF has two places for document details:

• The document information dictionary: Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator (the program that made the original), Producer (the program that wrote the PDF), and the creation and modification dates.
• An XMP metadata stream: a block of XML that usually repeats the same details and can add more, such as editing history and document IDs.

You rarely type your name into either. It is copied in automatically:

• Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint take the Author from the user name under File › Options › General, or from your Microsoft account. The document keeps it even after you send it to someone else, who may then add their own name as “last modified by”.
• LibreOffice uses the name under Tools › Options › LibreOffice › User Data.
• Print-to-PDF drivers often put the original file name in the Title field, which can include your name or a folder path like C:\Users\jsmith\Documents.
• Templates carry the name of whoever created the template, so documents made from a company template may name a colleague.

Check what your PDF says

1. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader, a browser or another viewer.
2. Open File › Properties (Ctrl+D on Windows, Cmd+D on a Mac) and read the Description tab.
3. On a Mac, Preview shows the same under Tools › Show Inspector.

Or drop it into the PDF Metadata Remover, which lists every field in one table.

Remove it in your browser

1. Open the PDF Metadata Remover and drop in your PDF.
2. Read the report: author, title, subject, keywords, creator and producer software, dates, and whether an XMP stream is present.
3. Click Remove metadata and download the cleaned file.

The pages are not changed: text stays selectable, fonts and images are untouched, and nothing is converted to an image. The tool removes the whole information dictionary, dates and any custom fields included, deletes the XMP stream, and removes leftovers from earlier saves (explained below).

Remove it before you make the PDF

Cleaning the original document first is a good habit, because the same details also go out with every Word or Excel file you send.

Microsoft Word (Windows)

1. Go to File › Info › Check for Issues › Inspect Document.
2. Make sure Document Properties and Personal Information is ticked and click Inspect.
3. Click Remove All next to that result.
4. When saving as PDF, click Options in the Save As dialog and untick Document properties.

On a Mac, Word has a similar setting under Review › Protect Document: “Remove personal information from this file on save”.

LibreOffice

1. Open File › Properties and click Reset Properties on the General tab.
2. For every document, turn on Remove personal information on saving under Tools › Options › LibreOffice › Security › Options.

Mac: Save as PDF

When you choose File › Print › Save as PDF, the save dialog has Title, Author, Subject and Keywords fields. Check what is in them before saving.

Adobe Acrobat Pro

Edit or clear the fields under File › Properties. For a thorough clean, the redaction tools include Remove Hidden Information and Sanitize Document, which also remove comments, attachments, hidden layers and form data.

The copy most tools miss: earlier saves

Many programs save a PDF by appending changes to the end of the file instead of rewriting it. That is how form filling, Acrobat edits and some converters work. The old version of the document information is not deleted. It just stops being used.

So you can edit the Author field, see the new value in every reader, and still send a file whose bytes contain your name from an earlier save. Anyone looking at the raw file, or using a forensic tool, can recover it. ExifTool’s documentation says the same about its own PDF edits, which are deliberately reversible for this reason.

The PDF Metadata Remover handles this. Its report lists values found in earlier saves, and the cleaned file is written out fresh without them. If you use ExifTool, rewrite the file afterwards with a tool such as qpdf:

exiftool -all:all= report.pdf
qpdf --linearize report.pdf report-clean.pdf

Other places your name can hide in a PDF

Metadata is the most common place, but not the only one. Before sending something that must be anonymous, check:

• Comments and annotations. Each comment, highlight or sticky note records its author, normally your user name.
• Tracked changes converted into the PDF as markup.
• Form fields with pre-filled names or email addresses.
• Attachments embedded in the PDF, which have their own metadata.
• Images inserted into the document. A photo pasted into Word can keep its EXIF data, including GPS location, inside the PDF.
• Headers, footers and bookmarks created from document properties or file names.
• The file name itself, such as JSmith_review_final.pdf.
• Digital signatures, which always identify the signer.

For a document that is confidential as well as anonymous, see our checklist for sharing a confidential PDF safely.

Check the result

Open the cleaned PDF and press Ctrl+D (Cmd+D on a Mac). Author, Title, Subject and Keywords should be blank. Dropping the file back into the PDF Metadata Remover should show that no metadata was found. Some readers fill an empty Producer field with their own name when you re-save, so check the file you are actually going to send.

Frequently asked questions

The tool for this guide