how to get the Finder to show the YEAR in access dates?

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Level 1

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how to get the Finder to show the YEAR in access dates?

This goes back many versions, and it still bugs me that nobody seems to have come up with an answer. Look at any file in the Finder. Here's one I picked at random on my machine:

tdbf.pdf

The Created date shows as: Saturday, Aug 2 at 2:58 PM

There's an option to "Show Less".

The problem is, I want to SHOW THE YEAR!!!

This was created around 2014 and was last accessed maybe 2016.

It does not matter what option I select to view the file details, none of them show the YEAR.

Actually I switched from columns to List view and saw the same thing in the List view -- then it switched to show "Aug 2, 2014 at 2:58 PM"

If I go into a terminal window and type 'ls -l' in that folder, it shows the date as "Aug 2 2014".

When I'm looking at old files I don't care about a long day name (or ANY day name) or even the time, I just want to see the DATE -- INCLUDING THE YEAR.

Isn't there any way to do this?

It used to be that if files were more than one year old, it would change the display format so it included the year. That way you knew if it did NOT display the year, it was less than a year old. But at some point that logic was changed and now it NEVER shows the year in column view. (MacOS on a Mac Mini with a 4k display)

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 26, 2020 7:36 PM

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Answer 1

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Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,560 points

Sep 26, 2020 8:44 PM in response to thetoolwiz2

I find that strange, I can see the year in my Finder windows Preview panel whether in any

of the View options.

The problem may be down to how your Dates formats are set in System Preferences.

Open

System Preferences> Language & Region, click on Advanced and then select Dates.

This is where you set up how dates are shown on your mac, check to see if the Year

has been added to the fields Short, Medium, Long and Full.

If the Year element is missing just click and drag the Year from Date Elements bottom panel

up to the Short, Medium, Long and Full areas, you can shuffle each of the Day, Date, Month and Year

elements around to suit your own taste.

If you have the Preview panel activated in your Finder views then click on View in the menubar,

select Show Preview Options, this will open a new panel where you can select other parameters to

be displayed in the Preview section. For each different file type you will see a different panel with

appropriate parameters which can be checked or unchecked.

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how to get the Finder to show the YEAR in access dates?

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