File creation date differences between OSX and Windows

Discussion in 'Mac Programming' started by XPcentric, Jul 25, 2012.

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  1. XPcentric, Jul 25, 2012

    XPcentric macrumors 6502

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    Oct 16, 2008
    #1
    When I used to have windows, the creation date of a file downloaded from the internet was the date the copy of that file was made on the hard drive. In OSX, the creation date shown is the unix creation date, I guess.

    The problem is with downloaded files, and not only, I guess you have a very large folder with downloaded files too. Sometimes I forget the name of the downloaded file, sometimes the browsers cleans up automatically the history, sometimes when I unarchieve a downloaded rar file, the extracted file will have a different name. Very annoying sometimes to find the new downloaded file when I cant sort the files by download date, and the creation date does not help. How do you deal with that ?
     
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  2. DOGONO, Jul 27, 2012

    DOGONO macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Jul 25, 2012
    #2
    If I understand you correctly, your issue is the extracted file can haves different name, and the creation date doesn't reflect when you extracted it. The solution? Go into View Options in the finder's view menu, and enable "Date Added". Sort by this, and newly extracted files will appear on the top, regardless of modification date.
     
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  3. foidulus, Jul 27, 2012

    foidulus macrumors 6502a

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    #3
    That is very much dependent on whatever software used to download and/or extract the file(and perhaps the protocol as well). The OS has no concept of what a "download" is, it just deals with files and defaults to the current date. Now many browsers and unarchivers use the remote files metadata to set the metadata of the local files, but thats not a requirement. If your particular software doesnt update the metadata, it will simply default to whenever it was downloaded/unarchived.
     
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  4. subsonix, Jul 27, 2012

    subsonix macrumors 68040

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    Feb 2, 2008
    #4
    Sort on last modification date instead of the date of creation. As far as I remember Finder has a specific field for this, just highlight that field and the most recent downloads should be at the top.
     
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