The hidden data in your files, and how to remove it before sharing
, 5 min read
Every file you share carries more than its contents. Most of it is harmless. Some of it is not.
Photos
A phone photo typically stores the date and time, the phone model, camera settings and, unless you turned it off, the exact GPS coordinates where it was taken. Post a picture of something for sale and you may be publishing your home address to anyone who checks.
Image Metadata and DPI Viewer shows you what is inside a given photo. Remove EXIF strips it, and it does so without re-compressing the image, so quality is untouched.
Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Office files record the author name, the company from the software licence, total editing time and the names of everyone who left a comment. Tracked changes can preserve text you deleted. Sending a proposal that still contains another client's name in the revision history is a real and common embarrassment.
Clean Word Document accepts tracked changes, deletes comments and removes hidden text. Remove Office Metadata strips the author and company details from .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files.
PDFs
PDFs record the producing software, creation and modification dates, and often the original file name and author, which can include your computer's user name. Remove PDF Metadata clears those fields, including the XMP block that some tools leave behind.
What stripping does not do
Removing metadata does not hide what is visible. If a name appears in the text of the page, it is still there. For that you need Redact PDF, which removes the underlying text rather than drawing a black box over it. Black rectangles added in an image editor can often be undone by copying the text beneath.
A simple habit
Before anything goes to a stranger, a public forum or a marketplace listing, run the photo through the EXIF remover and the document through the metadata remover. It takes seconds, and you can do whole folders at once with Bulk EXIF Remover.