Introduction

rs-mahito is a Windows CLI tool for removing metadata from files on NTFS filesystems. It clears privacy-sensitive information like Zone.Identifier streams, file timestamps, Office document properties, and file ownership.

Features

• Zone Identifier Removal: Clears the Zone.Identifier alternate data stream that marks files as downloaded from the internet
• Timestamp Reset: Resets file timestamps to January 1, 2000, removing temporal metadata
• Owner Clearing: Removes file ownership information via SID manipulation
• Office Document Cleaning: Strips metadata from Office Open XML documents (docx, xlsx, pptx)
• Batch Processing: Process entire directories recursively
• Dry Run Mode: Preview changes before applying them

Why rs-mahito?

When you download files from the internet, Windows adds metadata that can reveal:

• When the file was downloaded
• Where it was downloaded from
• Who owns the file
• Document author information (for Office files)

rs-mahito helps you clean this metadata while preserving the actual file content.

Quick Start

# Clean a single file
rs-mahito file path/to/file.pdf

# Clean a directory
rs-mahito dir path/to/folder

# Clean recursively
rs-mahito recursive path/to/folder

Requirements

• Windows 10 or later
• NTFS filesystem
• Administrator privileges (for some operations)