After Accept All Changes: what still names people and dates in a Word document
Last updated: 19 October 2026
Short answer: Accept All Changes removes the change marks, and with them the author and date of each change. It does not remove comments, which keep their own author information and any stored dates; it does not turn tracking off, so later edits are recorded again; and it leaves the document properties, such as the author, the person who last saved the file, the revision number and the total editing time, plus Word's editing-session ids and any name typed in the text. Accept the changes, then deal with each of those, and check the saved copy.
How accepting and rejecting change the text is in accept or reject tracked changes, and the author property in the author's name in Word. This page is about what is left once every change is accepted.
What Accept All Changes removes
In a .docx (ECMA-376), each tracked insertion, deletion or formatting change is marked in the text with its author and, usually, a date. Accepting a change keeps its result and removes the mark, so the author and date of that change go with it. Microsoft's page Track changes in Word lists the options under Accept: Accept and Move to Next, Accept This Change, Accept All Changes Shown, Accept All Changes, and Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking.
Two of those matter here. Accept All Changes Shown accepts the changes the current view shows; if the view is limited to some reviewers, the others' changes, with their names and dates, stay. And hiding the markup is not accepting it: the same page says "Hiding changes doesn't remove them from the document."
What stays after every change is accepted
- Comments. The page says plainly: "Comments are no longer part of the Track Changes function." Comments keep their own author information and any dates stored with them, and newer files can keep a list of the people who commented. Delete the comments separately; see comments, ink and annotations.
- The tracking setting. Accepting the changes does not turn Track Changes off. If it is still on, the next person to edit the file has their changes recorded, with their name. Use Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking, or select Off in the Track Changes list on the Review tab, as the page describes. In the file, the setting is a
w:trackRevisionselement inword/settings.xml. - Document properties. The author (
dc:creator), the person who last saved the file (cp:lastModifiedBy), the revision number (cp:revision) and the creation and modification dates are indocProps/core.xml; the total editing time (TotalTime) is indocProps/app.xml. None of them is a tracked change. - Editing-session ids (rsid). Word marks text with ids for the editing sessions it came from. They hold no names, but can show that two files came from the same document; see the rsid fingerprint.
- Earlier wording elsewhere. Accepting a change keeps only its result in the text, but the earlier wording can survive where tracked changes do not reach: quoted in a comment, in a copy sent before, or in an earlier version kept by OneDrive or SharePoint.
- Names in the text. "Checked by …" in a footer, initials in a table: these are content.
Document Inspector
Microsoft's Document Inspector page lists, for Word, comments, revision marks from tracked changes, and document properties (including the Summary, Statistics and Custom tabs) among what it finds and removes. It does not say whether it accepts or rejects the changes it removes, and it does not list Word's editing-session ids. Run it on a copy, and read the text afterwards.
What ScrubDrop does
ScrubDrop reads the .docx in your browser; the file is not uploaded. For free, from one file at a time, it accepts the tracked changes and removes the tracking setting with them, removes the comments with the list of people who wrote them, and removes the document properties, including the last saved by, revision number and editing time. Rejecting tracked changes, or choosing per author, and removing the editing-session ids are part of ScrubDrop Pro. It does not change names typed in the text. The result is read again with separate parsers and offered only if nothing of the chosen categories remains.
How to check this yourself
- Make a copy of the .docx, rename it to .zip and unzip it.
- In
word/document.xmland the header, footer, footnote and endnote parts, look for<w:ins,<w:deland other change marks with aw:author. None should be left. - For editing-session ids, look for
w:rsidattributes in those parts, and forw:rsidsinword/settings.xml. - In
word/settings.xml, look for<w:trackRevisions. If it is there, and not set to false, tracking is still on. - In
word/comments.xml, look for<w:commentelements; inword/people.xml, for people. - In
docProps/core.xmlanddocProps/app.xml, read the elements named above.
Questions
Does Accept All Changes remove comments?
No. Microsoft's Track changes in Word page says that comments are no longer part of the Track Changes function. Delete the comments separately; they keep their own author information and any stored dates.
After I accept all changes, will new edits be tracked?
Yes, if tracking is still on. Accept All Changes resolves the changes already in the document; it does not turn tracking off. Use Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking, or turn Track Changes off, if the file should not record further edits.
Does accepting the changes remove the editor's name from the file?
It removes the names on the accepted changes. The names in the document properties, such as the author and the person who last saved it, and the names on comments are separate, and stay until you remove them.
Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 19 October 2026.
See what a document still carries after you accept the changes, in your browser. Free: one file at a time; the supported kinds of hidden data it finds are listed, and properties, comments and tracked changes are removed. Check a file.