Home / ubuntu / Questions / 858150
Accepted
NonStandardModel
Asked: 2016-12-08 11:48:36 +0800 CST

How (if possible) to change modification date of folder to past?

  • 772

I have large number of files and folders in a separate partition and I need them to be ordered by creation/modification time (in Nautilus I click on the "View items as list" button and on "Modified" colum to get this done). Few days ago I saw a sub-folder, that was not needed, in one of them and I deleted it. But that also changed the modification date of folder that contained it. Now this folder is at the top of the list.

It is not a big deal, but it got me wondering if there is a way to revert to previous modification date.

I am using Ubuntu 14.04.

nautilus

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I don't know about reverting to the previous modification date, but you can certainly set it to an arbitrary date: touch -t or touch -d. Check man touch for the format to use, and choose between -t or -d.

    For example, to set the last modification time on a directory called Downloads to 5th December 2016 at 12:30 you'd use:

    touch -t 201612051230 Downloads
    • 2