Copying to external drive and preserve creation date (finder vs cp vs rsync)

[Blackfield]

Hi,

Tried to copy a folder to external drive for backup:

- Copy using Finder preserves the creation and modification date. 🙂
- Copy using terminal "cp -r" or "cp -a" changes creation date and modification date to today. 😡
- Copy using terminal "rsync -avP" or "rsync -avPHE" changes modification date to today. 🙁

Is there a console command that is identical to Finder copy that preserves both creation date and modification date?

 

[HenryAZ]

- Copy using terminal "rsync -avP" or "rsync -avPHE" changes modification date to today. 🙁

Even though the rsync man page says -a includes the -t switch, I have found I have to use -at to preserve modification dates/times.

 

[MacUser2525]

Even though the rsync man page says -a includes the -t switch, I have found I have to use -at to preserve modification dates/times.

Well you learn something new every day... I always go with the -avP thinking I was getting that already.

 

[Blackfield]

Even though the rsync man page says -a includes the -t switch, I have found I have to use -at to preserve modification dates/times.

Thank you! Adding -t and -N flags to rsync did the trick.

 

[njpl3]

I know this is three years later, but adding that -t fixed my problem. Thanks!