Tiny Online Tools
Why a removal tool needs to prove itself
Most "remove PDF metadata" tools clear a few fields and hand you a file. Two things routinely go wrong, and neither is visible without checking.
The object survives the deletion. Removing /Metadata from the catalog unlinks the XMP packet — it does not delete it. Most writers serialise every object they parsed, referenced or not, so the packet is still in the file and still readable by anything that scans objects instead of following the catalog. This tool runs a reachability sweep after every removal and drops whatever nothing points at any more, including orphans that were already there.
The save is incremental. Appending a cleaned catalog to the original bytes leaves the old catalog, and every value in it, intact earlier in the file. Recovering it takes one command. This tool always does a full rewrite.
The verification pass
After writing, the new bytes are re-opened and read again from scratch. You get a before-and-after value for every field, and then a deeper check: each removed value is searched for across every string, every dictionary key and every decodable stream in the written file.
That produces one of three honest answers per value:
- Gone — not found anywhere in the output.
- Still in the file — reported as an error. Not swept under the rug.
- Found in the page content — the value is typed into the page itself, and no metadata tool can remove it. You need real redaction for that, and the tool says so instead of implying the file is clean.
What can be removed
The whole Info dictionary (optionally keeping the title), custom Info keys, /Producer and /Creator, the XMP packet, document and per-page /PieceInfo (InDesign and Illustrator leave a lot here), the structure tree and mark info, embedded files, JavaScript in all its hiding places, /OpenAction and additional actions, annotations, and the trailer document ID that links every revision of a file back to the original.
Removing the structure tree destroys accessibility for screen-reader users, so it is off by default and warns when you turn it on.
Privacy
The file is read and rewritten in your browser. It is never uploaded — which is the only sensible arrangement for a tool whose whole purpose is removing information you do not want to share.