Page 123 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

GEM IN THE ROUGH HOW TO SHED YOUR
METADATA’S SKIN

At the bottom of the Details tab of the Properties dialog box is
a peculiarly worded link: Remove Properties and Personal
Information. This is a privacy feature. It means “Clean away

all the metadata I’ve added myself, like author names, tag
keywords, and other insights into my own work routine.”

Microsoft’s thinking here is that you might not want other

people who encounter this document (as an email attachment,
for example) to have such a sweeping insight into the minutiae
of your own work routine.

When you click this link, the Remove Properties dialog box
appears, offering you a scrolling list of checkboxes: Title,
Rating, Tags, Comments, and lots and lots of others.

You can proceed in either of two ways. If you turn on “Create a
copy with all possible properties removed,” then all the
metadata that’s possible to erase (everything but items like File

Type, Name, and so on) will be stripped away. When you click
OK, Windows instantly creates a duplicate of the file (with the
word “Copy” tacked onto its name), ready for distribution to

the masses in its clean form. The original is left untouched.

If you choose “Remove the following properties from this file”
instead, you can specify exactly which file details you want

erased from the original. (Turn on the appropriate checkboxes.)

Right-click it (or hold your finger down on it). From the shortcut
menu, choose Properties.

Alt-double-click it.

If the icon is already highlighted, press Alt+Enter.