Remove metadata properties Leave feedback

The easiest way to remove metadata properties from a file is to use the corresponding tags that let you locate the desired properties across all metadata packages. But sometimes it’s necessary to remove metadata entries that have a particular value. With a Python predicate you can find and remove properties that satisfy a condition as complex as you need.

The following example demonstrates how to remove specific metadata properties using a combination of criteria.

1. Load a file to update
2. Pass a predicate to the remove_properties method to find and remove the desired properties
3. Check the number of properties that were actually removed (the return value of remove_properties)
4. Save the changes

from groupdocs.metadata import Metadata
from groupdocs.metadata.common import MetadataPropertyType
from groupdocs.metadata.tagging import Tags


def remove_metadata_properties():
    # Remove all the properties satisfying the predicate:
    #   the property carries the "author" tag, OR
    #   the property carries the "last editor" tag, OR
    #   the property is a string whose value equals "John"
    #   (to wipe any mention of John from the detected metadata)
    with Metadata("input.docx") as metadata:
        affected = metadata.remove_properties(
            lambda p: Tags.person.creator in list(p.tags)
            or Tags.person.editor in list(p.tags)
            or (p.value.type == MetadataPropertyType.STRING and str(p.value) == "John")
        )
        print(f"Properties removed: {affected}")
        metadata.save("output.docx")


if __name__ == "__main__":
    remove_metadata_properties()

Binary file (DOCX, 14 KB)

As a result of running the code snippet above, we remove all mentions of the document author/editor and all other string metadata properties whose value is “John”.

For more information on searching metadata, please refer to the following articles:

• Extracting metadata
• Removing metadata
• Adding metadata

To learn more about library features and get familiar how to manage metadata and more, please refer to the advanced usage section.

You may easily run the code above and see the feature in action in our GitHub examples:

• GroupDocs.Metadata for Python via .NET examples

You are welcome to view and edit metadata of PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX, emails, images and more with our free online Free Online Document Metadata Viewing and Editing App.