Date Modified Wrong in Downloads Folder Only

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Level 1

54 points

Date Modified Wrong in Downloads Folder Only

I noticed recently (running El Capitan on Macbook Pro 13 Late Retina) my Downloads files had a Date Modified value about a month in advance. Saving or downloading to other folders did not exhibit this problem. I went into Finder's View Options and switched to Date Created sort then showed Date Created. After doing this the problem in Downloads went away. Is this a known El Capitan bug?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4), Late 2013, 8GBRAM, 256GB SSDHD

Posted on Apr 18, 2016 1:04 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

William Lloyd

Level 7

21,323 points

Apr 18, 2016 2:47 PM in response to EarthBased

The default for the Downloads folder is actually Date Added, which is integrated with Gatekeeper and how OS X handles downloads (to ensure security). It's not strictly the same as Date Modified or Date Created, which is real metadata that is stored elsewhere in the file.

It's not really a bug; it's that the defaults for the Downloads folder specifically are different, to show you when specifically the file was downloaded to your system, which could be different than the creation or modification dates on the file itself.

I don't know why you'd see anything displaying a month in advance, unless the time on your computer itself was set wrong.

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Answer 2

EarthBased Author

Level 1

54 points

Apr 19, 2016 7:29 AM in response to William Lloyd

No, my clock was/is correct. That is the first thing I checked. Maybe the config for Downloads folder was messed up and changing the setting in Options fixed it. All is OK now though.

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