mat2: Limitations and an Alternative


mat2 is a free open-source (FOSS) cross-platform multi-format privacy-oriented file metadata remover. It's an offline desktop application with a command-line interface. (CLI) It supports many types of document, image, audio, and video file formats. mat2 stands for Metadata anonymisation toolkit 2.

Windows® 11 has a built-in metadata remover - the "Remove Properties and Personal Information" feature. However, it is very unreliable due to its very limited support of file formats and hidden data types, and due to its highly misleading user interface. This feature can only remove a small number of metadata properties from only twelve notable file types.

Due to the serious shortcomings of the built-in metadata remover in Windows® 11, a third-party reliable and comprehensive hidden data & metadata remover is essential. mat2 provides a much greater support of file types and metadata formats, but it has a few limitations making it less than ideal to many users, who, consequently look for an alternative. Notable limitations include:

  • Lacks an easy way to install on Windows
  • Lacks a graphical user interface (GUI) for Windows
  • Lacks capability for selectively remove some hidden data & metadata while preserving other (e.g. remove tracked changes, but preserve comments)
  • Lacks capability for removing embedded image metadata from Microsoft Office files. (When an image is embedded in a document, the image metadata is embedded too. Image metadata might include personally identifiable information and geographical coordinates)

Alternative to mat2

BatchPurifier™ is a low-cost paid alternative to mat2. BatchPurifier™ is an offline privacy-oriented desktop application for Windows®, that has a graphical user interface, (GUI) and supports the selective removal of more than 60 types of hidden data & metadata from various types of image, video, audio, and document files. It has an easy to install setup.

Using BatchPurifier to remove hidden and metadata from files

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