Privacy Tips
Remove Metadata Before Sending Email Attachments: A Simple Routine
Attachments keep author names, company details and photo locations. A short routine to check and clean files before you hit send.
· 4 min read
Quick answer
When you attach a document or photo to an email, the file is sent as it is — including its hidden metadata. Don't assume your email service cleans it. Check the file in a metadata viewer, remove what you don't want to share, and attach the cleaned copy.
What travels with an attachment
- Word, Excel and PowerPoint: author, last modified by, company, comments and sometimes tracked changes.
- PDF: author, the app that made it, and dates.
- Photos: device model, date taken and possibly GPS location.
Our metadata privacy checklist lists the twelve things worth checking.
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A five-minute routine
- Save a sharing copy. Keep the original; work on a copy.
- Check it. Drop it into the upload box to see the report.
- Remove hidden content in Office. Microsoft's Document Inspector removes comments, revisions and personal information.
- Clean the file. Use MetaClean Pro to strip remaining fields and get a report of what changed.
- Attach the cleaned copy and send.
When this matters most
- Job applications — see resume metadata.
- Legal and client work — see metadata in legal discovery.
- Healthcare — see HIPAA and metadata.
- Selling items online — see marketplace photos.
Several attachments?
Clean them together. Pro handles up to 20 files per batch with files up to 50 MB, and gives a ZIP download — see batch metadata removal. Pro is $14.99/year, billed annually and renewing automatically until canceled. To try it first, you can clean and download one file free — once per account.
Received an attachment?
The same check works the other way: upload a file you received to see who made it and when. Read how to find out who created a PDF.
Frequently asked questions
Does my email provider remove metadata from attachments?
Do not rely on it. Attachments are generally delivered as the file you attached, so clean the file first.
Sources & further reading
Every factual claim above is traceable to a primary source. Check them yourself:
Try MetaClean Pro free — remove metadata from your files in seconds.