# What your PDF says about you: remove metadata before you share it

> Every PDF carries a small identity card: who made it, with what, and when. Sometimes that card says more than the document itself.

Open a PDF's properties in any viewer and you'll find fields most people never look at: *Title*, *Author*, *Subject*, *Keywords*, *Creator*, *Producer*, creation and modification dates. They're filled in automatically from your account name and the software you used.

## Why it matters

Usually it's harmless. Occasionally it's embarrassing or worse:

- A title left over from an old template: "Offer letter – Candidate B".
- The author field showing a colleague's name, or your personal account name on a company document.
- A creation date at 2 a.m. the night before a deadline that was supposed to have been met weeks earlier.
- Keywords from an internal draft that were never meant to leave the building.

Journalists and lawyers check these fields routinely. It's one of the first things anyone looks at when a document's origin is in question.

## See what's in your file

Open [Edit metadata](https://pdfjade.com/edit-pdf-metadata) and add the PDF. The current values are shown in the form, so you can read them before deciding anything. If you only want to fix one field, say a wrong title, change it there and save.

## Remove it all

[Remove metadata](https://pdfjade.com/remove-pdf-metadata) clears the title, author, subject, keywords, creator, producer and dates in one go. The pages themselves aren't touched.

## What metadata removal doesn't do

- It doesn't remove text on the pages. Names in a footer, tracked changes that were printed into the PDF, or comments that were flattened stay visible.
- It doesn't remove hidden text under a black box. A black rectangle drawn over a name in Word is often just a rectangle on top; the name is still there underneath and can be copied. Real redaction removes the text itself.
- Annotations and form fields are separate from metadata. [Flatten](https://pdfjade.com/flatten-pdf) the PDF if you want form answers to become part of the page.

For a quick share, removing metadata is good hygiene. For anything sensitive, check the pages too.

Source: https://pdfjade.com/guides/remove-metadata-before-sharing-a-pdf