Quick answer
In PowerPoint, work on a copy of the presentation, choose File, Info, Check for Issues, Inspect Document, select Inspect, and select Remove All next to each finding you want gone. Or drop the .pptx file into the tool above: it shows the comments, comment authors, author and company fields it carries, then gives you a copy with them removed.
Microsoft’s inspector can also remove speaker notes and off-slide content. Doc Scrubber reports speaker notes and hidden slides but leaves them in: they are content, so you decide.
What Microsoft says PowerPoint stores, and how Inspect Document works
Microsoft’s page “Remove personal information from your presentation” (PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016) advises removing personal or confidential information before you share, especially outside your organization. Its steps: open a copy, then File, Info, Check for Issues, Inspect Document, Inspect, Remove All, and Reinspect to check. It says to inspect a copy, because it is not always possible to restore what the inspector removes.
Microsoft’s longer Inspect Document page says that for a presentation the inspector looks for:
- comments and ink annotations;
- document properties and personal information, including email headers, send-for-review information, document server properties and the file path for publishing web pages;
- data about who has edited the file and when it was edited;
- objects formatted as invisible, and off-slide content such as clip art, text boxes, graphics and tables;
- text that was added to the Notes section;
- custom XML data.
The same page says that after you remove personal information with the inspector and keep modifying the presentation, PowerPoint will continue to automatically remove the personal information when saving this file. The Privacy Options page (Microsoft 365, Office 2021, 2019 and 2016 on Windows) lists “Remove personal information from file properties on Save” as turned off in PowerPoint.
Microsoft’s comments page (its product list includes PowerPoint for Microsoft 365) says comments in a Microsoft 365 document are stored in the file, so anyone with edit access to your file can edit your comment. To delete one, it says to select it in the Comments pane, then More thread actions, then Delete thread.
Microsoft’s page on hiding a slide says: “A hidden slide remains in the file; it is merely hidden when you run Slide Show view.”
Clean the file with Doc Scrubber
For a .pptx file the tool removes: author, last modified by, title, subject, keywords, description, category and the created, modified and last-printed dates; company, manager, template, total editing time, hyperlink base and part titles; custom properties; the preview thumbnail; custom XML parts; comments and comment authors; and camera and GPS data in embedded JPG, PNG and WebP photos. Nothing is uploaded; you can check in your browser’s Network tab.
- Keep your original presentation. The tool gives you a separate clean copy.
- Above the drop zone, leave “Document properties and personal info” ticked. Leave “Comments (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and annotations (PDF)” ticked to remove comments and comment authors, or untick it to keep them. Leave “Camera and GPS data in photos embedded in Office files” ticked. The other options are for Word.
- Drop the .pptx file or choose it. Free for up to 5 files at a time. Old .ppt files and password-protected presentations are not supported.
- Read “Found in your file”: it can list author, last modified by, company, comments and who wrote them, hidden slides, speaker notes and links to local file paths.
- Download the clean copy and read “Still in the clean copy”, which is re-read from the new file.
- Open the copy in PowerPoint and click through every slide before you send it.
What this does not remove
- Speaker notes. The report counts the slides that have notes and keeps them.
- Hidden slides. The report counts them and keeps them. Delete them in PowerPoint if they should not go out.
- Anything visible: names on slides, in footers and on the slide master, watermarks, text inside images, and the file name.
- Off-slide and invisible objects, and revision tracking data (who edited the file and when). Microsoft’s inspector checks for these; this tool’s lists do not include them.
- Links to local file paths. Listed in the report, not removed.
- Embedded files and objects, macros, and photos in other formats than JPG, PNG and WebP.
- Digital signatures. They stay but stop validating, because cleaning changes the file. The report warns you first.
- Copies stored elsewhere.
This is not legal advice. The tool removes the fields it lists and shows what is left; read the copy before you send it.
Also sending a workbook or PDF? See removing metadata from an Excel file, removing metadata from a PDF or inspecting a document for hidden data.