The ctime is set to the current system time. touch -a file.txt Change the atime of file.txt. Discuss the workings and policies of this site This works(using sed to convert date to format touch can handle): 'touch -d $(identify -format %[exif:DateTime] $f|sed -r 's/:/-/;s/:/-/;') $f' It is included in Unix and Unix-like operating systems, TSC's FLEX,[1] Digital Research/Novell DR DOS, the AROS shell,[2] the Microware OS-9 shell,[3] and ReactOS. You can use the touch command along with the -r switch to apply another file's attributes to a file. Ideally I am looking for a command which can change the date/time stamps of a whole bunch of files to a certain amount of time earlier or later (e.g. Featured on Meta Hi, I want to modify a file and then change the file's timestamp back to what it was before the modification. This works(using sed to convert date to format touch can handle): 'touch -d $(identify -format %[exif:DateTime] $f|sed -r 's/:/-/;s/:/-/;') $f'Same as above comment. Anybody can answer For those who want to include seconds in their time, use I tried to verify it using stat, but neither of the It didn't work for me, it changed only the "Change" time@Revious , Xerus What's the difference between the Adjusting the date of images based on meta info in the image would be pretty useful. Internally, the operating system stores these times as time elapsed since an arbitrary date called the epoch. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top If file.txt does not exist, it is created. If there isn’t a file with the specified name, touch command will create it for you if permissions allow it:As you can see from the example, the file which isn’t originally found, gets created by the touch command and gets its timestamps set to the current system time and date.If you have a specific time and date you would like to be used for all the timestamps of a file or directory, touch command will gladly accempt a timestamp template with -t command line option.Template for the timestamp is quite thorough: [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss], but it’s entirely up to you whether to specify the year (either two-digit or a full form) or not.As you can see from the output, both access time and modification time got updated. The touch command allows us to update the timestamps on existing files and directories as well as creating new, empty files.In this guide, we will show you how to use the touch command through practical examples and detailed explanations of the most common command options.Before going into how to use the touch command, let’s start by reviewing the file timestamps in Linux.To display the file status including the timestamps, use the Creating a new file requires write permissions on the parent directory. Every file in Linux is associated with timestamps, which specifies the last access time, last modification time and last change time.Whenever we create a new file, or modify an existing file or its attributes, these timestamps will be updated automatically. There is a In the terminal go to the directory for date-edit.

Providing only the date, automatically changes the year to the current one:For example, the following command will set the last access and modification times of For example, the following command will tell touch to use the times of For example, to change the timestamps of the symbolic link By now you should have a good understanding of how to use the Linux touch command.If you like our content, please consider buying us a coffee.Sign up to our newsletter and get our latest tutorials and news straight to your mailbox.

I was really looking for a way to change atime, ctime, mtime and now I could atleast do that with ease.If I remember, if you wont to change the date before the current time, touch must be invoked from the same user that is the owner of the file…Thanks for the information.

touch -h mysym Change the times of file mysym. touch –at 1606051730 file or touch –a -t 1606051730 file And if you want to do the same for the modification time just substitute (-at) with (-mt).