Downloaded files from Safari showing incorrect date/time

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Level 1

9 points

Downloaded files from Safari showing incorrect date/time

In searching for answers to this issue I am having I found several people who have had this problem but no real solution.

When I download files from the Internet using Safari (or it looks like any other browser it seems including Firefox and Opera) the downloaded file shows the date/time created as the date/time I downloaded the file rather than the ACTUAL date/time the file was created.

For example, if I have a file on my web site that was created on 2/14/2009 12:45 pm, when I download that file to my home computer using the latest version of Safari and MacOS after the file is downloaded it will instead display under the "Created:" part of "Get Info" the date and time I just downloaded the file instead of 2/14/2009 12:45pm which is NOT what I need.

I am running the latest version of the MacOS (High Sierra 10.13.4) along with the latest version of Safari (11.1) on a MacBook Pro 15" Retina Late-2013. On my old MacBook Pro which was running Snow Leopard (10.6.8) I had never run into this issue.

Because I am having the same result using Safari, Firefox and Opera could this be a MacOS issue rather than a Browser problem?

Does anyone know of a fix or workaround for this issue? Thanks for anyones help.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, iOS 11.3

Posted on Apr 1, 2018 12:35 PM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,306 points

Apr 1, 2018 3:50 PM in response to dingdong2u

A file and its contents are two different entities.

The file you download was created on your Mac at the time it was downloaded.

The content of that file may have been created at some other time.

A "file" is an entity of the file system you create it upon. The file does not exist in some ephemeral universe that is in sync with your file system.

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Answer 2

dingdong2u Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 2, 2018 12:31 AM in response to Barney-15E

The problem is, previously in Snow Leopard after downloading the file in question it retained the date and time the file was ACTUALLY originally created/modified rather than High Sierra replacing that info with whatever date and time you may have downloaded that particular file.

With High Sierra replacing the original date & timestamp with the time it was downloaded it makes it IMPOSSIBLE to figure out which of my files are more recent than the others short of naming them with a date inside the filename.

When you copy a file over a local network the file retains the created/modified timestamp information of the original file. Copying/Downloading a document over the internet should work the same way as it did back with Snow Leopard.

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Downloaded files from Safari showing incorrect date/time

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