Be careful! Parts of your document may include personal information that can't be removed by the Document Inspector.

Anonymous
2013-09-27T08:26:34+00:00

Hi All

I have an Excel 2013 document that I've been using for over two months and have had no problems with editing or saving it. Today I edit it and than saved it and I received a strange looking error message "Be careful! Parts of your document may include personal information that can't be removed by the Document Inspector."

I have tried to find out any information on what it might be, by using Bing and Google without any success. It looks like I'm the only one who has received this error message. I hope it's not a virus!

Please help

Colin

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2013-09-28T02:05:11+00:00

I had the same problem, it's incredibly annoying and there's strangely little posted about it on the interwebs.  Anyway, here's how you fix it: Goto File in the upper left hand corner, then Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > then un-check the check box that says "Remove personal information from file properties on save", then hit OK.  Hope that helps.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-12-29T18:56:11+00:00

    THANK YOU!!!! This has been driving me nuts!

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-10-18T16:08:32+00:00

    I had the same problem, it's incredibly annoying and there's strangely little posted about it on the interwebs.  Anyway, here's how you fix it: Goto File in the upper left hand corner, then Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options

    > then un-check the check box that says "Remove personal information from file properties on save", then hit OK.  Hope that helps.

    Your answer STILL ROCKS in 2017, @GodelEscherBob.  Thanks.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-10-23T07:28:25+00:00

    I also have this problem. Three observations:

    1. There is no personal information in metadata. Document Inspector shows no problems.
    2. The worksheet actually contains personal data like name, address and date of birth, with appropriate column names in first line.
    3. The error pops up only when Word merge document is open at the same time, using this file as the source.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-05-29T15:18:17+00:00

    I had the same problem.  Thanks for the answer.  The Excel developers are getting too tricky for their own good.  They are starting to act like auto mechanics who don't own a driver's license.  They seem to have lost touch with how people actually use their program.  Too bad.

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