Remove hidden metadata and revision history from a PDF
Clearing the title and author is easy. The harder part — the part many tools miss — is the metadata you cannot see: overwritten fields from earlier saves, orphaned XMP packets, and the incremental revision history still sitting in the bytes.
metavanish removes both. You edit or clear any visible field, and on save the whole file is rebuilt into a single revision with unreachable objects garbage-collected, so the hidden history is physically gone.
Open the free tool →Why simple strippers are not enough
A tool that only rewrites the Info dictionary leaves the previous revision intact underneath. Anyone who opens the file at the byte level can still recover the original title, author or dates. To truly remove metadata, the file has to be flattened — collapsed to one revision — and its orphaned objects swept away.
What gets removed
On save, metavanish can clear or rewrite:
- The full /Info dictionary and the document XMP packet.
- Nested XMP attached to pages and images.
- The trailer /ID and /PieceInfo private application data.
- The incremental revision history and orphaned objects — flattened into a single clean revision.
Verify before and after
Because the same tool includes a byte-level forensic view, you can confirm the result: load the cleaned file back and check that no superseded revisions or tool traces remain. What you see is what the recipient sees.
Nothing leaves your session
The document is processed in memory and discarded immediately — never uploaded, never stored, no account required. You keep the original bytes; the tool just hands back a cleaned copy.
How to use it
- Open metavanish and load the PDF you want to clean.
- Edit or clear the fields you do not want to share (or clear everything at once).
- Save — the file is rebuilt into one revision with hidden history and orphaned objects removed.
FAQ
Does this remove the hidden revision history too?
Yes. On save the PDF is flattened into a single revision and orphaned objects are garbage-collected, so earlier states are physically removed — not just hidden.
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. It is processed in your browser session and discarded immediately. Nothing is written to disk or stored.
How can I be sure the metadata is gone?
Load the saved file back and use the forensic view. If the metadata was truly removed, no superseded revisions or tool traces will appear.