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Do other platforms support Mac creation dates?

I might need to move some files to a different platform. I’m wondering if the Mac’s designation of the creation date of a file (as seen in Get Info) is standard or is it Mac specific? I’m trying to futureproof my files and the creation dates are fairly significant.

Posted on Jun 7, 2020 12:23 PM

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Posted on Jun 7, 2020 3:49 PM

File creation dates are just that, the date/time that the file was created. When you copy to another File System, a new file is created on that file system so it should get set to the current date/time when it was created. The creation date has no relevance to when the contents of the file were created.


macOS does add metadata to files that establishes a "content" creation date, but not all file systems support metadata, and even if they do, they may not support that particular metadata or some way to map it to an equivalent.

I do not know which date Get Info uses, but I would think that is the actual file creation date on the file system.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 7, 2020 3:49 PM in response to Timothy Arends1

File creation dates are just that, the date/time that the file was created. When you copy to another File System, a new file is created on that file system so it should get set to the current date/time when it was created. The creation date has no relevance to when the contents of the file were created.


macOS does add metadata to files that establishes a "content" creation date, but not all file systems support metadata, and even if they do, they may not support that particular metadata or some way to map it to an equivalent.

I do not know which date Get Info uses, but I would think that is the actual file creation date on the file system.

Do other platforms support Mac creation dates?

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