Check a file for hidden data
Your file is read and cleaned in this browser tab. It is never uploaded.
Drop a .docx, .xlsx or .pptx here
or click to choose. Free: one file at a time; everything found is listed, properties and comments are removed and tracked changes accepted. ScrubDrop Pro: several files, the other kinds, the audit report.
No file to hand? Try a made-up one:
Saved settings
Kept in this browser only, and only which kinds are ticked and whether tracked changes are accepted or rejected — never the file, its name or anything found in it.
Several files at once, removing the other kinds it finds (pictures in formats it does not clean keep their metadata, and white or tiny text, text hidden only in Web Layout and cells outside the print area are only pointed out), rejecting tracked changes or choosing by author, and the audit report are part of ScrubDrop Pro.
What this tool cannot do
The full list is under What it does not handle.
- It does not promise that Office will open the result without a complaint. The new file is read again by readers separate from the one that wrote it (three separate readers, counting that one), and on our own test files by Microsoft's Open XML SDK validator, but not by Word, Excel or PowerPoint themselves. Open it in the program you will send it with before you send it.
- Signed, rights-protected, encrypted and macro-enabled files are not handled. A digital signature would no longer match a changed file; a file protected with IRM, or encrypted with a password to open, cannot be read; .docm, .xlsm and .pptm files, the old binary .doc, .xls and .ppt formats, and files saved as Strict Open XML are refused with a message, not cleaned. Save as an ordinary .docx, .xlsx or .pptx first.
- It finds hidden data by kind, not by meaning. It does not judge whether visible text is sensitive, and it does not read text inside pictures. White or tiny text and cells outside the print area are pointed out, not removed: whether they matter is your call.
- Where it cannot be sure, it refuses rather than guesses. Text hidden through a style, a field split across paragraphs, a chart over hidden cells, a sheet with conditional formatting, data validation, sparklines or scenarios when hidden rows or columns would be emptied (check those by hand) and similar cases stop the removal you chose with a sentence saying what to change first; when the refusal is about one kind, untick it and the rest can still be cleaned; a refusal about the whole file needs the file changed first. The file is always listed.
- Removing hidden sheets, rows or columns, defined names or links to other files turns every formula on the sheets that stay into its last calculated value, not only the formulas that used them, and removing an embedded object leaves its picture. Look at the result.
- Image metadata is cleaned in JPEG, PNG, GIF and SVG. Pictures in other formats (TIFF, BMP, EMF, WMF, JPEG XR, HEIC, WebP) are kept as they are and listed as not checked.
- Very large workbooks need memory. On our test computer, a 50 MB workbook of 500,000 cells on 30 sheets took about 30 to 40 seconds to clean and re-check, and the browser used up to about 1.5 GB more memory while it did (Chromium and Firefox; about 6.6 GB in WebKit, the engine Safari uses — so for files of 10 MB or more, use Chrome or Firefox). A workbook of 100,000 cells takes a few seconds. If the browser runs out of memory, the tab can stop without a message from this page: close other tabs and try again, or use a computer with more memory. A file with more than 10,000 parts, a part larger than 200 MB unpacked, or more than 400 MB unpacked in all is refused.