Privacy Scanner Find Hidden Data in Your PDF

Scan any PDF for hidden metadata that could expose your identity before sharing. Strip all detected data with one click. Free, no upload.

How to Scan a PDF for Private Data — Step by Step

PDFs can contain hidden personal data such as the author's name, email, company, creation date, GPS coordinates, and edit history. The Privacy Scanner reveals all metadata so you can decide whether to clean it before sharing.

1. Upload your PDF. Drop your file into the scanner above — scanning starts automatically.
2. Doclair scans all metadata fields. XMP, DocInfo, embedded objects and custom properties are all inspected.
3. View the full privacy report. Each detected field is shown with its severity level — high, medium, or low.
4. Use Clean PDF Metadata to remove any fields you don't want to share. Click Strip All Metadata to download a clean version instantly.

What private data can be hidden in a PDF?

PDFs may contain the author's name, email, organisation, software used to create the file, creation and modification timestamps, GPS coordinates from embedded images, comment threads, document history, custom properties, and embedded file attachments. Sharing a PDF without checking metadata can inadvertently expose this information.

Privacy Scanner on iPhone and Android

Doclair works in mobile Safari and Chrome. Upload your PDF from Files and review the privacy report instantly in your browser.

Frequently Asked Questions