🔍 Extract PDF Metadata Client
See everything hidden inside your PDF's metadata — title, author, producer, creation date, XMP data, and more. Know what you're about to share before you share it.
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Drop your PDF below — all metadata is extracted instantly and shown in organized tabs.
Drop your PDF here or click to browse
Only .pdf files • Works offline • Your file never leaves this device
document.pdf
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How to Extract PDF Metadata
Upload Your PDF
Drop your file — metadata is extracted instantly on upload.
Browse the Tabs
Document Info, XMP, Pages, and raw JSON — organized by category.
Copy or Download
Copy individual values, or export the entire metadata as JSON.
Frequently Asked Questions
Two main flavors:
1. Info Dictionary — the traditional metadata stored as key-value pairs: Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator (the original software), Producer (the final software), CreationDate, ModDate. Present in almost every PDF.
2. XMP Metadata — a rich XML format introduced by Adobe. Contains Dublin Core fields (dc:title, dc:creator, dc:description), Adobe extensions (PDF version, PDF/A compliance), and can include camera info, GPS coordinates, copyright, and custom schemas. Not all PDFs have XMP.
Five common reasons: (1) Privacy audit — check if author name, machine name, or GPS coordinates leak before you share a document. (2) Forensics — determine when and with what software a document was created. (3) Legal/archival — verify document dates and provenance. (4) Troubleshooting — figure out which tool produced a broken PDF. (5) Automation — extract metadata to build a document management system.
Creator is the software that created the original document — e.g. "Microsoft Word 2019" or "Adobe InDesign CC". Producer is the software that generated the actual PDF file from that document — e.g. "Acrobat Distiller 22.0" or "Skia/PDF". If someone created a document in Word and exported it via Google Docs, Creator = Word, Producer = Google Docs.
Absolutely — this is the most important reason to check. Real-world metadata leaks include: original author names on documents that were supposed to be anonymous, file paths revealing internal network structure, GPS coordinates embedded by phone scanners, printer serial numbers, and even tracked-changes history in the XMP. Always check metadata before sharing a sensitive PDF publicly. If you need to strip it, use our Remove Metadata tool.
PDF metadata is entirely optional. Many PDFs — especially those generated by simple scripts, LaTeX without hyperref, or minimalist apps — have very sparse Info dictionaries. Others have been intentionally stripped before publishing. Empty fields just mean the creator didn't fill them in or someone removed them.
No. Everything runs in your browser using pdf.js. Your file never leaves your device — which matters even more for this tool, since metadata often contains exactly the sensitive info you're checking for.