Every Office document quietly records who created it, who last edited it, the company name from their copy of Word or Excel, and a revision count. When you share that file, you can accidentally reveal internal names, a client’s identity, or how many times a “final” document was actually revised. This scrubber strips those fields out, in your browser, without changing a word of the content.
How it works
DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX files are really ZIP archives of XML parts. The metadata lives in two of them:
docProps/core.xmlholdsdc:creator(author),cp:lastModifiedBy,cp:revision, and the title.docProps/app.xmlholdsCompanyandManager.
The tool reads the uploaded file as bytes, parses the ZIP central directory to locate each part, and inflates compressed entries with the browser’s native DecompressionStream("deflate-raw") — no third-party library. It then empties the value inside each metadata tag (leaving the tag itself so the file stays valid), re-packages every part into a fresh ZIP, and hands you a download.
Tips and notes
- The cleaned file keeps the same extension and is named with a
-cleansuffix so you never overwrite the original. - Only the listed metadata fields are touched. Tracked changes and comments inside the document body are a separate feature — remove those in the app (Review tab) before scrubbing if they are sensitive.
- Re-saving the cleaned file in Word or Excel will re-stamp your current author name, so scrub as the last step before sharing.
- Because everything runs locally, there is no upload and no size limit beyond what your browser’s memory allows. Confidential files stay on your machine the whole time.