Copy a file and keep the same timestamp of the original file
You can preserve the timestamp of the original file when copying using cp
by adding the -p
or --preserve
option:
-p same as --preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps --preserve[=ATTR_LIST] preserve the specified attributes (default: mode,ownership,time‐ stamps), if possible additional attributes: context, links, xattr, all
So to preserve only the timestamp
cp --preserve=timestamps oldfile newfile
or to preserve mode and ownership as well
cp --preserve oldfile newfile
or
cp -p oldfile newfile
Additional options are available for recursive copying - a common one is cp -a
(cp --archive
) which additionally preserves symbolic links.
If you want to preserve the original timestamps, use
$ touch -r <original_file> <new_file>
This copies the timestamps from another file.
See this blog post for more: Fake File Access, Modify and Change TimeStamps