Hi. I recently moved several hundred files from a computer on my network onto my laptop and later I noticed that all the creation timestamps for those files got changed to the date and time that the files were moved.
Oops. I didn't realize that would happen. (In fact, I had thought that the default behavior was to not change the creation timestamp. So how did that happen? What did I misunderstand?)
Anyway, I wanted to keep the original creation timestamps. And I did notice that the modification timestamps of the files did not change as a result of moving the files.
So, is there a way I can now change the creation timestamps of those files to match their modification timestamps?
If Preferences / File Operations / Copy Attributes / Preserve the timestamps of copied files was on and you copied the files using Opus, both timestamps should have been copied (provided the filesystem they were copied to supports setting the creation timestamp).
If they were copied with something else, then it's up to the tool how it preserves timestamps.
The Properties > Attributes command on the default toolbars will open a UI with options for copying one timestamp to the other, for selected files/subfolders.
You can also use the metadata panel. The date fields at the bottom have similar options to copy from each other.
Same for me. My "Change Attributes & Times" dialog window does not have those options for setting creation time to what's in the modified time, and vice versa.
Leo, by the way, I just checked and I did have my "Preserve the timestamps of copied files" setting turned on in DOpus, which caused me to scratch my head until I remembered that I had actually used a file comparison program called "Beyond Compare" to identify which files I needed to move and to actually move the files.
I just looked at the settings for Beyond Compare and I did not find a setting that addresses whether to preserve the creation timestamp. (Which is odd, if you ask me.) So I just ran a little experiment and I confirmed that Beyond Compare does, in fact, update the creation timestamp to the date/time the file is either moved or copied. (Again, I find it weird that there's no setting to choose to do that or not.)
Also, in the meanwhile I did a web search for a program that manipulates datestamps, and I found a really good one from NirSoft called "BulkFileChanger" that lets you do all sorts of things with datestamps. It's worth a look, because it has some pretty good features that go beyond what you can do with DOpus. Still, I'd like to know why the DOpus feature to change the creation stamp to match the modified stamp (and vice versa) isn't available to me. I guess it's time to see if I have the most recent version of DOpus, eh? I'm currently running version 11.15 x 64.
Anyway, Leo, thank you once again for the help in looking into this. As always, your help is perfect.
Okay, thanks, Leo. I found how to invoke the metadata pane, and I see the "copy date created from date modified" and "copy date modified from date created" functions. Excellent.
Concerning what you said,
you are of course right. I just mentioned it in passing, and wasn't looking for feedback on it. I was just trying to be reassuring that I wasn't dead in the water.
Thanks for this thread. This has bugged me for a long time, now solved. So Opus CAN do it on a large batch of files, using the metadata panel, which I just found also works for bulk file list.
I find this metadata panel method to be counter-intuitive (but I'm glad you showed it to us Leo). This is because there is a nice "Change Attributes & Times" feature where you would expect to see this functionality. Moving or copying the feature to this panel will be helpful, when its ready for prime time that is.. Meanwhile the metadata panel does the trick.
