Before you send
Clean Metadata From a Contract Before Sending
Before you send a contract, clean its metadata — a draft agreement often carries your firm's name, the negotiator's identity, internal reviewers in the last-modified-by field, and, most damaging, tracked changes and comments that survive 'accept all changes.' Those can reveal your fallback terms, internal pricing notes, or which clauses you fought over. MetaDocu scans a Word or PDF contract in your browser, strips author and company info, file paths, timestamps, revision history, comments and RSIDs, and shows a verification report confirming the file is clean — with nothing uploaded to a server you don't control. For a document as sensitive as a contract, local processing means the other side never receives your negotiating hand by accident. Drop the contract in below to scan and clean it.
Scan & clean your contract
Word or PDF — processed in your browser, never uploaded.
Audit Local Metadata Risks
Drag files below to generate an offline privacy audit report.
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The riskiest thing in a contract: tracked changes
Tracked changes, comments and the people who made them can persist inside a .docx even after you accept all changes — the deleted text and internal notes remain in the file's XML and comment parts. A counterparty who turns tracking back on, or simply opens the comments, can read your edit history. MetaDocu removes the revision and comment parts outright, so no hidden negotiation history ships with the contract.
Hidden fields in a Word contract
What MetaDocu finds and removes in a .docx contract before you send it.
| Hidden field | What it exposes | Risk | How MetaDocu removes it |
|---|---|---|---|
Author / Creator dc:creator · PDF /Author | The real name (or Office sign-in name) of whoever first created the file — often your full legal name. | High | Cleared from the OOXML core properties / PDF Info dictionary in browser memory; the field is emptied, not just hidden. |
Last Modified By cp:lastModifiedBy | The name of the last person to save the file — exposes internal reviewers and collaboration chains. | High | Stripped from the core properties XML so no editor identity remains. |
Company Company (app.xml) | The organization name baked in from your Office licence — reveals your employer even on a personal document. | Medium | Removed from the extended (app) properties part. |
Manager Manager (app.xml) | The manager name some templates embed — leaks your reporting line. | Medium | Cleared from the extended properties. |
Template path Template (app.xml) | An absolute file path to the template (e.g. C:\Users\<you>\…) — leaks your account name and local folder layout. | High | Path is wiped so no local filesystem clue ships with the file. |
Application & version Application/AppVersion · PDF /Producer · /Creator | The exact software and version used — a fingerprint for targeting known vulnerabilities or deanonymizing authors. | Low | Normalized/removed from app properties and the PDF Producer/Creator fields. |
Revision number cp:revision | How many times the file was saved — hints at how heavily a 'final' document was reworked. | Low | Reset in the core properties. |
Total editing time TotalTime (app.xml) | Cumulative minutes spent editing — can contradict claims about when/how long work was done. | Low | Zeroed out in the extended properties. |
Created / Modified dates dcterms:created/modified · PDF /CreationDate /ModDate | Precise creation and last-edit timestamps — builds a timeline of your activity. | Medium | Removed or reset so no editing timeline leaks. |
Title / Subject / Keywords dc:title, dc:subject, cp:keywords · PDF /Title /Subject /Keywords | Internal codenames, client names, or tags left in the properties even when not shown in the document text. | Medium | Cleared from both OOXML properties and the PDF Info dictionary. |
Revision save IDs (RSID) w:rsid in settings.xml + run-level rsids | Random per-editing-session IDs that let two documents be linked to the same author/machine across files. | Medium | RSID nodes are physically stripped from the document XML, breaking cross-file correlation. |
Tracked changes & comments w:ins/w:del, comments.xml, people.xml | Deleted text, internal review notes and commenter names that survive inside the file after 'accepting all'. | High | Comment and revision parts are removed so no hidden review history ships. |
Custom properties custom.xml | Bespoke fields added by DMS/templates (matter numbers, classifications, internal IDs). | Medium | The custom properties part is cleared. |
Frequently asked questions
How do I clean metadata from a contract before sending it?
Open the contract in MetaDocu, scan it, and remove the metadata and revision history in one click before downloading the clean copy — all in your browser, nothing uploaded. For a Word contract this clears author, company, last-modified-by, template path, timestamps, RSIDs, and crucially the tracked changes and comments that can leak your negotiating position. For a PDF it clears the Info dictionary and XMP stream. The verification report confirms what was removed so you can send the agreement knowing no hidden edit history travels with it.
Does 'accept all changes' remove tracked changes from a contract?
Not completely. Accepting changes resolves them visually, but comments, commenter names, and remnants of the revision machinery can remain in the document's XML, and in some workflows deleted text persists. The only reliable way to ensure none of it ships is to remove the comment and revision parts from the file itself. MetaDocu does exactly that, stripping those parts so a counterparty cannot reconstruct your edit history — then it shows you a report confirming they're gone.
Is it safe to clean a confidential contract online?
With MetaDocu, yes — because the contract is never uploaded. It's processed entirely in your browser using WebAssembly, so the file stays on your device and there's no server copy to be intercepted, logged or retained. That's a meaningful distinction for a confidential agreement: upload-based tools transmit the document to a remote server, while MetaDocu's local model removes that risk entirely. Once the page has loaded you can even disconnect from the internet and still clean the file.
Send the contract, not your edit history
Remove metadata, comments and tracked changes in your browser — nothing uploaded.