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Office Privacy Inspector

Inspect metadata, comments, hidden information, external references, and other privacy-related findings in Office files before sharing, then clean supported items and reinspect.

View on GitHub
Local processing
About your filesFiles and content selected in this tool are processed in your browser and are not uploaded to a Browser Kitty backend.
Operation demo See the basic workflow in a short video.

About this tool

Office Privacy Inspector reviews Office Open XML files before sharing and surfaces Creator data, comments, tracked changes, hidden information, external references, speaker notes, embedded objects, and other privacy-related findings. The summary shows representative values and concrete findings rather than counts alone.

Supported core metadata, selected Custom Properties, DOCX RSID/comments, and PPTX comments/speaker notes can be removed from a separate copy. The generated copy is automatically inspected again so you can compare Before and After results before saving. Packages that are risky to rewrite, such as digitally signed or macro-related files, remain inspection-only.

Good for

  • Check whether author names, company data, comments, or other metadata remain before sending Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files outside the organization
  • Review hard-to-notice items such as PowerPoint speaker notes or hidden slides and Excel Hidden / Very Hidden sheets
  • Select only supported cleanup targets and reinspect the generated copy to verify what was actually removed
  • Inspect macro-enabled or digitally signed Office packages without automatically rewriting risky content

What it can do

Key capabilities available in this tool.

How to use

  1. Open the tool and choose or drop a DOCX, XLSX, or PPTX file.
  2. Review the summary and the representative values shown under information to check before sharing.
  3. Inspect the Word-, Excel-, or PowerPoint-specific findings and any package cautions.
  4. Select supported cleanup targets. Removing all comments or speaker notes may require confirmation.
  5. Create the cleaned copy and wait for the automatic reinspection to complete.
  6. Compare Before / After findings, review anything that remains, and save the separate -cleaned copy when satisfied.

Supported

  • Fully supported: .docx / .xlsx / .pptx. DOCM / XLSM / PPTM are inspection-only.
  • Common metadata: Creator, Last Modified By, Last Printed, Company, Manager, Total Editing Time, Custom Properties, and related fields.
  • Word: comments, tracked changes, hidden text, RSID data, external relationships, embedded objects, and Custom XML.
  • Excel: Hidden / Very Hidden sheets, hidden rows or columns, external references, defined names, connections, Pivot / Slicer caches, and embedded objects.
  • PowerPoint: comments, speaker notes, hidden slides, off-slide objects, external relationships, embedded objects, and Custom XML.
  • Cleanup: supported common metadata, selected Custom Properties, DOCX RSID/comments, and PPTX comments/speaker notes. The original is not overwritten.
  • Runtime networking: no third-party runtime libraries, CDN, external fonts, analytics, or telemetry; the generated HTML uses connect-src 'none'.

Limitations and notes

  • A clean inspection result does not guarantee that the file contains no confidential information. Visible text, images, shapes, charts, white text, and text inside images still need separate review.
  • Tracked changes, hidden text, hidden sheets/rows/columns, external references, embedded objects, and Custom XML are detected but not automatically removed in v1.0.0.
  • Excel comments and threaded comments are not deeply inspected or cleaned in v1.0.0.
  • VBA/macro content and digital signatures are not rewritten; affected packages remain inspection-only.
  • Encrypted or password-protected OOXML and legacy DOC / XLS / PPT formats are not supported.
  • Complex Word style or theme inheritance can contain hidden behavior not fully modeled by the current inspection.
  • Large Office packages can exceed browser memory limits depending on the device.

Frequently asked questions

Are Office files uploaded to Browser Kitty?

No. File reading, OOXML inspection, cleanup, and reinspection run in the browser. The hosted version requires the initial HTML request, but the selected Office file is not sent to Browser Kitty for processing.

Which Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats are supported?

DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX are fully supported. DOCM, XLSM, and PPTM can be inspected but are not cleaned. Legacy DOC, XLS, and PPT are not supported.

Can it find hidden sheets and PowerPoint speaker notes?

Yes. It checks Excel Hidden / Very Hidden sheets and hidden rows/columns, as well as PowerPoint speaker notes and hidden slides.

Does it automatically remove every finding?

No. Only cleanup targets supported safely in v1.0.0 can be selected for removal. Some detected items, including hidden sheets, tracked changes, and external references, are inspection-only.

Does cleanup overwrite the original Office file?

No. Cleanup creates a separate -cleaned copy, reinspects that copy, and lets you save it after reviewing the result.

Offline version and source code

The root-level office-privacy-inspector.html on GitHub is a standalone HTML file. Save and open it directly to inspect Office files, clean supported findings, and reinspect the result without external APIs or a runtime CDN.

View source on GitHub

Use together

Useful next steps and companion tools, organized around the workflow.

Extract embedded images Office Image Extractor Use this when you need to recover photos or diagrams embedded in an Office document as image files. Inspect image metadata Photo Privacy Inspector Inspect GPS, EXIF, and other metadata before sharing images extracted from Office files. Manage PowerPoint versions PPTX Version Control Use this when you need to keep and compare revisions of a PowerPoint file.