Moonlight 365 SharePoint Metadata Cleanup

When working with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, documents/files have metadata that is automatically created and stored "in the document/file" , which can be found under the "Info" tab, in each document. These metadata fields include document created properties such as Author, Created By, Created On Date, Last Modified Date, and more. These metadata tags remain on the document unless forcefully removed. They are known as document generated tags or metadata.

If you use SharePoint to save these documents/files to, you may decide, or your IT department may have configured the SharePoint Sites to add additional metadata to the documents/files. These "assigned" by SharePoint metadata tags, are automatically added to your documents/files when they are saved to SharePoint. Some tags are fixed and specific to the SharePoint site you save to, some, require a user to choose the tag and add it to the document. Examples of automatically assigned Metadata Tags include field names like "Client", "Portfolio", "Department", "Region", "Business Unit". Examples of Metadata Tags that end-users must add to a document/file would include fields that are document specific, not SharePoint site specific. Examples of Metadata Tags that are not document created, but are document specific typically include the "kind or type" of document/file that it is. For example: "Contract", "Pleading", "1099", "Memo" and so on.

A common practice for many end-users is to open a document/file that they know is a good document to be reused for a specific situation. The user then uses the document/file as a kind of template, only editing the document/file for changes to the new, current, use case for the document. In many cases, they will then save the document/file to a different location in SharePoint. It is this practice that creates a metadata tag issue that Moonlight 365 Metadata Cleanup was created to solve.

In these scenarios, SharePoint does not automatically overwrite existing metadata values (such as Client, Customer, Matter, Project, or Document Type) if those fields are already populated on the document. To download the SharePoint Metadata Cleanup product information sheet, click this link.

As a result, documents frequently retain outdated or incorrect metadata after being copied, moved, or re‑saved across sites—even when the destination library has its own required or default metadata. Over time, this leads to inconsistent tagging, unreliable search results, broken filters, and poor downstream experiences for reporting, governance, and Copilot.

Moonlight 365 CleanUp addresses this problem automatically. The solution continuously monitors recently saved files across SharePoint sites, validates each document’s metadata against the default and required metadata configuration of the library where it resides, and corrects mismatched values when inconsistencies are detected.

The process runs quietly in the background, without disrupting end users, ensuring that documents are always aligned with the metadata standards of their current SharePoint location.

Designed for deployment and management by IT and SharePoint administrators, Moonlight 365 Metadata CleanUp delivers immediate value to end users by keeping SharePoint Search, filters, reporting, and Copilot experiences accurate, trustworthy, and effective—without manual cleanup or retraining.