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How to remove your name from a Word document before you send it

Last updated: 16 October 2026

Where your name is kept

A .docx is a ZIP package of XML parts (ECMA-376, the published specification of the format). Names turn up in several of those parts, and each is removed in a different way.

• Author and "last modified by". The core properties part records who created the document (creator) and who last modified it (lastModifiedBy). Microsoft's page Change the author name for documents, presentations, or workbooks says the author of a new file comes from the User name in Office's options.
• Company and manager. These sit in the extended properties part, with the statistics Word keeps about the file.
• Custom properties. Some document systems add their own fields — a matter number, a client name, a reviewer — as custom properties. They appear on the Custom tab of the properties dialog, which few people open.
• Comments. A comment can carry an author name, initials and a time.
• Tracked changes. An insertion, deletion or formatting change can record an author too. The text may look clean on screen if the view is set to hide markup, while the names stay in the file.

Microsoft's page on the author name also says the User name setting "provides the name and initials that are displayed in comments and tracked changes". So in Word, one setting usually feeds three of these places.

Windows: Document Inspector

Microsoft's page Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks gives the route: on the File tab, select Info, choose Check for Issues and select Inspect Document. Work on a copy: the same page warns that "it is not always possible to restore the data that the Document Inspector removes".

Two of its inspectors matter for names: Document Properties and Personal Information, and Comments, Revisions, Versions, and Annotations. What each one covers, in Microsoft's words, is listed in our guide to hidden data types in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Select Remove All next to both, save, and close. Then open the saved copy and look at File › Info again to confirm your name no longer appears under Related People.

If you only want a different name on one file rather than none, Microsoft's author-name page gives that route too: File › Info, right-click the author under Related People, choose Edit Property and type the new name. It also notes that changing the author of one file does not change your User name setting, so the next new document will carry your name again.

Mac: what the by-hand route leaves

Microsoft's page Inspect document says "Word for Mac doesn't have a document inspector" and points to File › Properties instead. The steps, and what else can be checked by hand on a Mac, are in our guide Document Inspector on Mac. For names in particular, two gaps remain after you have cleared the fields there:

• "Last modified by". Microsoft's page describes editing the Summary and Custom fields; it does not say that this removes the record of who saved the file last. Check the saved copy, as described under "How to check this yourself" below.
• Comments and tracked changes. They are not properties. On the Review tab, accept or reject every change and delete the comments. Our guide to accepting or rejecting tracked changes explains why hiding the markup is not the same as removing it.

In the browser

Word for the web cannot inspect a document either; Microsoft's Inspect document page sends you to the desktop app. ScrubDrop is the other route: it reads the .docx in your browser — the file is not uploaded — and lists the document properties, comments and tracked changes it finds, with counts and short samples, so you can see which kinds of names the file holds before you choose what to remove.

The free version removes document properties (including the custom ones), comments and tracked changes from one file at a time, accepting the changes. It then reads the result again with separate parsers and offers the file for download only if none of those categories remains and the visible text is unchanged. Rejecting changes instead, or keeping one author's changes and not another's, is part of ScrubDrop Pro.

What removing the properties does not remove

Three things are not taken out by clearing the properties alone; check each of them separately.

• Names in tracked changes you have not dealt with. Clearing the properties does not touch the revisions. Any author a change records stays with it until the change is accepted or rejected, or until Document Inspector removes the revision marks as a separate item.
• Details inside pictures. A photo pasted into a document can carry its own metadata — the camera, the time it was taken, sometimes the place. Microsoft's list of Word inspectors does not include picture metadata. ScrubDrop lists it for free and removes it in Pro; otherwise, remove it with a photo tool before inserting the picture.
• The file name. "Contract — J Smith comments v3.docx" says what it says. Rename the file before you attach it. ScrubDrop keeps the name you gave it and adds "-scrubbed", so rename that copy too.

Two more are worth knowing. Text you have typed — a signature block, "Prepared by", a name in a header or footer — is content, not metadata, and no tool will judge it for you. And some files carry editing-session identifiers that hold no names but can link a document to the one it was made from; that is the subject of rsid: the Word fingerprint.

Stopping it next time

The quickest fix is upstream. On Windows, in File › Options, the User name and Initials are what Word writes into new documents, comments and tracked changes. Microsoft's author-name page says to select "Always use these values regardless of sign-in to Office" if you want the name you type there to be used, and that the change applies to all Office apps on that computer. A neutral name such as a team or role keeps your own name out of new drafts, at the cost of your colleagues seeing that name on your comments too.

How to check this yourself

1. Make a copy of the .docx and rename it to .zip, then unzip it.
2. Open docProps/core.xml in a text editor and look at dc:creator and cp:lastModifiedBy.
3. Open docProps/app.xml for Company and Manager, and docProps/custom.xml, if there is one, for custom properties.
4. Search every XML file in the word folder — the main text, and the headers, footers, footnotes and endnotes, which are parts of their own — for w:author=. A hit is a tracked change or a comment with a name on it. Comments are usually in word/comments.xml.

Questions

Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 16 October 2026.