Remove metadata from Word documents online

A Word document tells people more than you put on the page. Author name, every name registered on every machine the file has touched, the company licensed to the Office install, the time you started writing, the time you last saved, sometimes the names of people you've collaborated with.

If the document went through tracked changes that were accepted but not removed from the change history, those previous edits can sit inside the file. So can comments you thought you'd deleted.

Metacleaner strips this metadata from .doc, .docx, .docm, .dot, .dotx, .dotm files. The text and formatting stay intact.

Clean a Word doc now See pricing

Office document open on a laptop, illustrating hidden Word metadata

Drop a Word document to clean it

.doc, .docx, .docm and templates. The cleaned file downloads automatically.

What's hiding inside a Word file

A modern .docx is a zip file containing XML. Inside it, there's an app.xml and a core.xml that hold the document properties. Typical fields:

  • Author. the Word user who created the document
  • Last modified by. the most recent person to save it
  • Company. pulled from the Office license
  • Title, subject, keywords. often left at template defaults
  • Created and modified timestamps
  • Total editing time. how long the document has been open in Word, accumulated across sessions
  • Revision number. how many times the file has been saved
  • Template path. the location of the template the file is based on
  • Content paths. sometimes including the local path of embedded images

There can also be more sensitive content depending on how the document was edited. Custom XML, hidden text, comments not yet deleted, and tracked-change history all sit inside the same file structure.

Why this matters in practice

A few real situations where Word metadata has caused problems:

  • Legal disclosure. Tracked changes that were accepted but kept in the change history have been used in litigation to show what the original draft said.
  • Tendering. A bid document forwarded between companies showed in its author field that an earlier draft had been written by a competitor's employee. Both firms had used the same freelance consultant.
  • Anonymous reports. Whistleblower documents have been traced back to their author through the metadata, even when the report itself was unsigned.

The visible content of the document is what you mean to share. The metadata is what gets shared whether you mean it or not.

How Metacleaner cleans Word files

  1. Drop the file onto metacleaner.com.
  2. The document uploads over an encrypted connection.
  3. The metadata fields are removed.
  4. Download the cleaned document. The content, formatting, fonts, and embedded images stay as they were.

We don't store the original or the cleaned file beyond the time it takes to process the request.

Supported Word formats

.doc (Word 97–2003), .docx (Word 2007 onward), .docm (macro-enabled), .dot, .dotx, .dotm (templates).

What about Excel and PowerPoint?

Same idea, same tool. Metacleaner cleans .xls/.xlsx/.xlsm/.xlt/.xltx/.xltm and .ppt/.pptx/.pptm/.pot/.potx/.potm too. Drop them in the same way. The full extension list is on the homepage.

Frequently asked

Does this remove tracked changes?

Tracked changes that have been accepted are part of the document content. Tracked-change history and unaccepted changes are part of the document structure and are removed during cleaning. To be safe, accept all changes and review the document yourself before uploading.

Will my comments be removed?

Comments are part of the document body. If you want them gone, delete them in Word first.

Will the formatting change?

No. Fonts, styles, headers, footers, and embedded images are preserved.

My .docx has a custom template attached. Will that information be removed?

Yes. The template path and template name are stored in the metadata and are cleaned.

Is this GDPR-friendly?

Removing personal data like author names from documents before sharing is one of the practical things organisations do to reduce personal-data exposure. It's not the whole story, but it helps. See the GDPR metadata page →

Use the API for batch cleaning

If your document workflow generates lots of Word files (proposals, reports, contracts, internal reviews), the Metacleaner API can run as a step in your pipeline. The endpoint accepts arrays of files. API documentation →

Clean a Word doc now