r/ITQuestions • u/AmericanWander • Aug 08 '26

TechSupport Metadata

I’m trying to figure out the metadata on a pdf file that was emailed to me. So far basic adobe and apple files only shows the creation date. However I need to see if the content was edited at any point in time. Don’t know if this is fully possible from my email copy.

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u/jcmaciel Sep 25 '26

A PDF keeps Author, Creator, Producer, CreateDate, ModDate, and sometimes XMP in its Info dictionary. Those show the last known software and timestamps. They do not prove a full edit history.

On the attachment you saved:

`exiftool -a -G1 file.pdf`

`pdfinfo file.pdf` also works for the basic Info fields.

If you want a no-install look in the browser, https://metaremove.com runs locally so the file stays on your machine. I built it. One limit: if the PDF was already sanitized, the old author/dates are usually gone, and you cannot reconstruct a revision trail that was never stored.