Remove the metadata from a PDF before sending it

What this tool does

• Author, title, subject, keywords, producing software, creation and modification dates: removed.
• The XMP too: the second copy of the metadata, the one people forget and tools read anyway.
• Active content goes with them: scripts, actions on opening, file launches attached to pages.
• The document is REBUILT page by page: the earlier versions of an incrementally saved file do not follow it.
• The dates written in are the zero epoch, not the current time: two exports of the same document give the same file, byte for byte.

What it does not do: The metadata of the DOCUMENT goes; what is written ON the pages stays, and that is deliberate: a name on a cover page, a scanned signature, an identifier in a footer are not metadata, they are the document. Properties that some software has tucked into its own non-standard objects can survive the copy: inspect the result if the stakes are serious. To erase what is visible on a page, you need to redact.

Nothing is uploaded. Cut your network connection once this page has loaded: the tool keeps working. How to check it yourself.

The other tools

• Merge PDFs : Several files, one document, in the order you decide.
• Organize pages : Reorder, rotate, delete, duplicate: the whole plan.
• Extract pages : Pick pages, take them out into a document of their own.
• Delete pages : Remove pages while looking at them, and they do not survive under the file you get.