How to remove PDF metadata and author properties

Create and check a PDF copy

1. Save the PDF locally and keep the original. Check that the file is within the 5 MB PDF limit.
2. Open MetaQuiet, choose Browse Files and select the PDF.
3. Review the readable properties and supported metadata report. If the file is rejected, read the error rather than assuming it can be cleaned partially.
4. Choose Create clean copy. MetaQuiet processes the document on your phone and rescans the output for supported metadata.
5. Save the copy, open it in a PDF viewer and inspect its pages and remaining document features before sharing.

If the PDF came from a cloud drive, download it before working offline. Sharing the result through another service is separate from local cleaning and follows that service’s behavior.

Author properties and XMP

PDF Info properties can include Author, Title, Subject, Keywords, creation and modification dates, and the software that produced the document. XMP is another metadata structure that can carry descriptive information. A PDF may use either structure or both.

MetaQuiet removes the supported Info and XMP metadata rather than changing a single author value. It is not a PDF properties editor. You cannot use this workflow to replace one author name with another or keep a chosen subset of supported properties.

The readable preview and the removal report serve different purposes. Not every metadata value can be shown as a friendly field, even when its containing structure is supported for removal. Read any preview warning alongside the block report.

What remains in the PDF

Page text and images remain. If your name appears in a header, signature image or scanned letter, removing the Author property does not remove it. Review every page that matters to the intended recipient, including material that may be easy to miss at thumbnail size.

Annotations, attachments and information associated with them can remain. An attached photo or document is not recursively cleaned. If an attachment should not be shared, address it separately with a suitable document tool and inspect the resulting PDF again.

Metadata removal is not redaction. A document that needs text or images removed requires a separate content-editing workflow. After that work, inspect the final exported PDF because editing software may write new document properties.

PDFs that MetaQuiet rejects

The PDF adapter rejects encrypted and signed PDFs, interactive forms and PDFs containing object streams. Object streams are an internal storage structure, so a document can look ordinary in a viewer and still be unsupported. The adapter also rejects documents with more than 2,000 pages.

The file limit is 5 MB, implemented as 5 × 1,024 × 1,024 bytes. Other structural checks can reject a smaller file. A rejection does not necessarily mean that the document is damaged; it can mean that its particular structure is outside the supported scope.

Changing the extension, putting the PDF in a ZIP or reconnecting to the internet does not bypass those restrictions. There is no remote cleaning fallback or format conversion in MetaQuiet.

Verify the version you will share

Reopen the saved copy in MetaQuiet to inspect supported properties again. Also check that the document opens and its pages display as expected in a PDF viewer. These checks answer different questions: metadata inspection covers supported structures, while viewing helps you review the document itself.

Save the result before clearing temporary copies in Settings > Storage. The original remains untouched, so choosing it accidentally when sharing would send its original properties as well.

Common questions