Remove speaker notes and comments from PowerPoint
Drop in a .pptx file to read its speaker notes, comments and hidden slides the way the person you send it to can. Then download a copy with the notes and names gone.
Read and cleaned in your browser. Your presentation is never uploaded.- 1Add your file
- 2See what's inside
- 3Download a clean copy
No file to hand? Try it with an example: or
Your file stays on this device. How do we know?
How it works
To delete all speaker notes in PowerPoint, drop the .pptx above. You'll see which slides have notes and what they say, plus comments, hidden slides and the author and company. Click Remove hidden data to delete every note and comment and clear the names in one go. The slides stay as they are. Checking is free; cleaning is part of Pro, and your first clean each day is free.
What the cleaner removes from a PowerPoint file
| Removed | Kept |
|---|---|
| Speaker notes on every slide | Every slide, exactly as it looks |
| Comments and who wrote them | Hidden slides, with a warning |
| Author, last saved by, company and dates | Animations, transitions and media |
| Total editing time and document properties | |
| Location and camera details in pasted photos |
If you want to keep your notes, untick them before you clean. The Word and PDF metadata viewer shows the same list for free if you only want to look.
Why speaker notes are a risk
Notes are where people write what they don't want on the slide: the real reason for a delay, the discount they're willing to give, a reminder about a colleague. When you present, nobody sees them. When you send the deck, they go with it, and the reader is one click away from the notes view. Comments are the same: "take this slide out before we send it" is still there after you hide the slide.
Hidden slides catch people out too. They're skipped in the slideshow, which makes them feel deleted, but they're still in the file for anyone who scrolls the slide list.
Before you send a presentation
Check the file here, delete any hidden slides you don't want shared, then clean it to remove the notes, comments and names. If you're sending a PDF instead, the PDF doesn't carry your notes unless you export notes pages, but the author and title often go along, so check the PDF with the PDF metadata remover. Our guide to removing metadata from PowerPoint covers PowerPoint's own Document Inspector step by step.
Questions, answered
How do I delete all notes in PowerPoint at once?
Drop the file above and click Remove hidden data: every slide's notes go in one step. In PowerPoint for Windows, go to File > Info > Check for Issues > Inspect Document, then click Remove All next to Presentation Notes. Save a copy first, because it can't be undone.
Can the person I send it to really read my speaker notes?
Yes. Notes are saved inside the .pptx, so anyone who opens it in PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides can switch to the notes view and read them. Notes only stay private when you present from your own computer.
Can I keep the notes and remove only the names and comments?
Yes. After the check, choose Choose what to remove and untick speaker notes. The comments, author, company and dates are still removed, and your notes stay for your next presentation.
What about hidden slides?
The checker lists them, but the cleaner keeps them, because you may still need them. A hidden slide is skipped during a slideshow, but anyone with the file can open it. Delete it in PowerPoint if it shouldn't go out.
How do I remove the author from a PowerPoint file?
The cleaner removes the author, last saved by, company and dates along with the notes. In PowerPoint for Windows, Inspect Document's Document Properties and Personal Information option does the same, but only for that one file.
Does it work with .ppt files?
No. It reads .pptx and .pptm, the formats PowerPoint has used since 2007. Open an old .ppt in PowerPoint, save it as .pptx, then drop that copy in.
Clean Word, PDF, video and audio files too
Pro removes hidden data from documents, videos and audio, and cleans whole folders at once. From $2 a month, billed yearly, and your first clean each day is free.