Document Inspector

About this tool

Office files remember far more than what you see on the page: who wrote them, who saved them last, how long they were edited, old comments, tracked changes, hidden worksheets and slides, speaker notes, and even a saved preview image. Document Inspector lists all of it and writes you a cleaned copy.

When to use it

Run it before sending a document outside your organisation, publishing a file on a website, or handing a template to a client — anywhere the document's history should not travel with it.

How to use it

1. Open a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx and related).
2. Read the report, grouped into document properties and personal information, comments and revisions, and hidden content.
3. Tick what should be dealt with and download the cleaned copy — your original file is never modified.

Good to know

• Hidden content is revealed rather than deleted, so you can read it and decide for yourself; nothing hidden is thrown away silently.
• A Microsoft Purview sensitivity label is reported and can be removed, but a file whose label applies encryption cannot be opened by any browser-based tool.
• Text that is part of a picture is not metadata, so it cannot be found or removed here.

Common questions

How is this different from the Document Inspector built into Office?

It runs without Office installed, on any device, and it shows you the actual values it found — the author name, the custom properties, which sheets are hidden — instead of only telling you how many items exist.

Does removing tracked changes accept them?

No. The revision markup is stripped from the saved copy, which leaves the text exactly as it currently reads. Review the document afterwards if those changes still mattered.

Is my document uploaded anywhere?

No. It is inspected and rewritten entirely in your browser and is never sent to a server.