Sanitize PDF
Remove hidden content from your PDF before sharing — strip JavaScript, embedded files, metadata, annotations, form fields, and hyperlinks with granular control. Everything runs in your browser, your file never leaves your device.
Why Use Our Sanitize PDF Tool?
Granular Control Over What to Remove
Choose exactly which content to strip — JavaScript, embedded files, metadata, annotations, form fields, hyperlinks, or bookmarks — with individual checkboxes and recommended presets.
Instant In-Browser Sanitization
The sanitize pdf tool processes your document instantly using pdf-lib running locally. No uploads, no waiting — clean PDFs download in seconds.
Completely Private & Secure
The sanitize pdf tool runs entirely in your browser. Your PDF file never leaves your device — no server uploads, no cloud storage, no third-party access.
100% Free — No Signup
Sanitize PDFs free forever with no account, subscription, or file size limits. Upload, select what to remove, and download the clean PDF instantly.
Common Use Cases for Sanitize PDF
Secure Document Sharing
Sanitize PDFs before sending to clients, vendors, or partners to strip author information, creation software, and hidden metadata that could reveal internal details.
Legal Document Preparation
Remove embedded files, JavaScript actions, and annotation trails from legal documents before court submissions to meet strict clean document requirements.
Security Policy Compliance
Strip JavaScript, auto-execute actions, and embedded files from PDFs received from external sources before opening in production environments to reduce attack surface.
Publishing & Distribution
Clean ebooks, reports, and white papers before publishing — remove draft comments, tracked changes annotations, and author metadata before public release.
Email Attachment Cleanup
Sanitize PDF attachments before forwarding to remove links, tracking pixels embedded as actions, and embedded file payloads that may not be visible to recipients.
Privacy-Sensitive Records
Strip metadata from medical, financial, and HR documents so the creation software, original author name, and modification timestamps are not exposed to recipients.
Understanding PDF Sanitization
What is PDF Sanitization?
PDF sanitization is the process of removing hidden, potentially harmful, or privacy-sensitive content from a PDF document before it is shared, published, or archived. A PDF file can contain far more than its visible content — JavaScript that runs automatically when the document opens, embedded file attachments not visible on any page, author and software metadata stored in the document info dictionary, user annotations and comments, interactive form fields, hyperlinks to external servers, and a bookmarks navigation tree. Our sanitize pdf tool lets you choose exactly which of these items to strip, giving you a clean, safe, minimal PDF without affecting the visible text, images, or layout.
How Our Sanitize PDF Tool Works
- Upload your PDF— Drop your document into the upload zone. The sanitize pdf tool loads it entirely in your browser using the pdf-lib library for full access to the document's internal structure.
- Select what to remove — Toggle the checkboxes for each item you want to strip. The recommended preset enables JavaScript, embedded files, and metadata removal — all invisible to readers. Optional items like annotations, form fields, and hyperlinks affect visible document content.
- Download the sanitized PDF— Click "Sanitize & Download PDF" to apply all selected removals and trigger an instant browser download. A summary shows which items were actually found and removed, along with the file size before and after.
What Gets Removed During Sanitization
- JavaScript & Actions — Auto-execute triggers including OpenAction, Additional Actions (AA), and the document-level JavaScript names tree.
- Embedded Files— File attachments stored in the PDF's EmbeddedFiles names tree and associated file (AF) entries that are not visible on any page.
- Metadata — Author, title, subject, keywords, creator, producer, creation date, and modification date from the document info dictionary and XMP metadata stream.
- Annotations, Forms, Links, Bookmarks — Optional removal of comment markup, form widgets, URI hyperlinks, and the document outline / bookmarks tree.
Privacy, Security & Availability
The sanitize pdf tool processes all documents entirely within your browser using client-side JavaScript. Your PDF file is never transmitted to any server, never stored in the cloud, and never accessible to any third party. This is especially important given that the documents you want to sanitize are often the most sensitive — legal agreements, financial records, medical files, and confidential business reports. The tool is free with no account, no subscription, and no file size restrictions — available on any device with a modern web browser.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Sanitize PDF
The sanitize pdf tool can remove JavaScript actions and auto-execute triggers, embedded file attachments, document metadata (author, creation date, software info), annotations and comments, interactive form fields, hyperlinks, and the bookmarks outline. You choose exactly which items to strip using the checkboxes before downloading.
PDFs can contain hidden content that poses privacy or security risks — JavaScript that runs automatically, metadata revealing the author and software, embedded files containing sensitive attachments, and tracking links. Sanitizing a pdf before sharing it with external parties removes this hidden content so recipients only see what you intend them to see.
No. The sanitize pdf tool processes your document entirely in your browser using client-side JavaScript. Your PDF file never leaves your device — it is never uploaded to any server or cloud storage, ensuring complete privacy for the very documents you are trying to secure.
No. The recommended settings (JavaScript, embedded files, metadata) are completely invisible to readers — removing them has no effect on the text, images, or visual layout of your PDF. Optional settings like removing annotations, form fields, or hyperlinks will visually affect the document, so only enable those when you intend to strip that content.
Annotations include comments, sticky notes, highlights, and drawing markup added on top of page content. Form fields are interactive input widgets like text boxes, checkboxes, and dropdowns. Both are annotation-type objects in the PDF spec, but form fields are specifically AcroForm widgets — stripping form fields removes interactivity while stripping annotations removes user-added markup.
No. PDF metadata (title, author, creation date, producer, keywords) is stored separately from the page content in the document info dictionary and XMP stream. Removing it has zero effect on text, images, formatting, or any visual element in the PDF.
Yes. The sanitize pdf tool is completely free with no account, signup, or subscription required. All processing happens locally in your browser with no file size limits.
The current version processes one PDF at a time. Upload, configure your sanitization options, download the clean PDF, then upload the next file. All processing remains local in your browser throughout.