Remove the author name from a PDF, from both places it hides

Where the name comes from

Almost nobody types their name into a PDF’s Author field. The program does it. Microsoft Office writes the user name from File, Options, General (“Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office”) into every document you create, and the PDF export carries it over. Many other programs use your operating system login. At work, that can be your full name and your employer’s naming scheme.

A PDF keeps that name in 2 places:

1. The document information dictionary. This is what File, Properties shows in Acrobat, Edge, Chrome or Preview, and what Inspect lists under Metadata.
2. The XMP packet. A block of XML stored separately, which repeats the author (as dc:creator), the title and the dates, and sometimes adds an edit history. Most properties dialogs do not show it; Inspect lists it under XMP metadata.

Clear only the first and the name is still in the file.

How to remove the author name

1. Open Remove PDF metadata and drop the PDF on it, or several PDFs at once. They open in a worker in your browser tab; nothing is uploaded.
2. Decide on the title. The Title switch reads “removed too” by default. Set it to “kept” only if the title says nothing you would not want seen; readers show it in the tab instead of the file name.
3. Click Remove metadata. The result card lists what the file said before it was cleaned and what was removed.
4. Download the -clean file and send that one.

On our test file the card listed Author “Jane Cooper”, a title, a subject, keywords, the creating program “Studio Lumen Sheets” and the PDF writer “Studio Lumen PDF 4.1”, with both dates, then said “Removed 8 document properties”, “Removed 1 XMP metadata packet” and “Replaced the file identifier”.

Field	Before	After
Author	Jane Cooper	none
Title	Quarterly report	none (or kept, if you chose)
Creator	Studio Lumen Sheets	none
Producer	Studio Lumen PDF 4.1	none
Creation and modification dates	1 July 2026, 15 September 2026	none
XMP packet with dc:creator Jane Cooper	present	removed
Pages, text, pictures		unchanged

Check that it is gone

1. Open the clean file’s properties in your viewer (File, Properties, or Document Properties). Author should be empty.
2. Drop it on Inspect. The Metadata panel should say none.
3. Read the XMP metadata panel in the same Inspect report. It should say none too. We made a file whose name sat only in an XMP packet: Inspect’s Metadata panel said none, and its XMP metadata panel listed Author “Jane Cooper” and Creator tool “Studio Lumen Sheets”. After Remove metadata, the card said “Removed 1 XMP metadata packet” and both panels said none.

The half-fix to avoid

Editing Author by hand in a properties dialog changes the dictionary. Whether the program also rewrites the XMP copy depends on the program, and you cannot see the XMP copy in that dialog to check (Inspect shows it). That is the gap: a file that looks clean in File, Properties can still carry your name in XML inside it. Removing both stores in 1 pass, as Remove PDF metadata does, closes it.

Stop it coming back

In Microsoft Office (Microsoft Support, checked on 11 October 2026):

• For every new document: File, Options, General, under “Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office”, change User name and Initials. Microsoft notes this changes them in every Office program on that computer. It also changes the name shown on your comments and tracked changes.
• For one document: File, Info, then under Related People, right-click the author and remove or edit it.
• Before you export a document that leaves the organisation: File, Info, Check for Issues, Inspect Document, then Remove All next to Document Properties and Personal Information. Microsoft recommends running it on a copy, since removed data cannot always be restored.

Other programs have their own setting, usually in the document properties or the export dialog. When in doubt, clean the PDF afterwards; it takes seconds.

The honest part

Metadata is only 1 place your name can be:

• The pages themselves: a cover page, a running header, a “Prepared by” line, a signature. Edit them in the editor, or redact them with Redact PDF.
• Comments: every comment stores its author’s name. Remove PDF metadata does not touch comments; delete them before you export, or flatten them into the page with Flatten PDF if they must stay visible.
• Bookmarks and attachments are not metadata either, and Remove PDF metadata leaves them as they are.
• Pictures inside the PDF can carry their own camera or software metadata, which this tool does not reach.

For a document that must not identify you at all, follow Anonymise a PDF; for everything a typical PDF says about itself, see What PDF metadata reveals.