How to get file creation modification date times in Python

Question

I have a script that needs to do some stuff based on file creation  amp  modification dates but has to run on Linux  amp  Windows   What s the best cross-platform way to get file creation  amp  modification date times in Python

User · Answer

There are two methods to get the mod time, os.path.getmtime() or os.stat(), but the ctime is not reliable cross-platform (see below).

os.path.getmtime()

getmtime(path)
Return the time of last modification of path. The return value is a number giving the number of seconds since the epoch (see the time module). Raise os.error if the file does not exist or is inaccessible. New in version 1.5.2. Changed in version 2.3: If os.stat_float_times() returns True, the result is a floating point number.

os.stat()

stat(path)
Perform a stat() system call on the given path. The return value is an object whose attributes correspond to the members of the stat structure, namely: st_mode (protection bits), st_ino (inode number), st_dev (device), st_nlink (number of hard links), st_uid (user ID of owner), st_gid (group ID of owner), st_size (size of file, in bytes), st_atime (time of most recent access), st_mtime (time of most recent content modification), st_ctime (platform dependent; time of most recent metadata change on Unix, or the time of creation on Windows):

>>> import os
>>> statinfo = os.stat('somefile.txt')
>>> statinfo
(33188, 422511L, 769L, 1, 1032, 100, 926L, 1105022698,1105022732, 1105022732)
>>> statinfo.st_size
926L
>>>

In the above example you would use statinfo.st_mtime or statinfo.st_ctime to get the mtime and ctime, respectively.

User · Answer

Getting some sort of modification date in a cross-platform way is easy - just call os path getmtime path  and you ll get the Unix timestamp of when the file at path was last modified   Getting file creation dates  on the other hand  is fiddly and platform-dependent  differing even between the three big OSes    On Windows  a file s ctime  documented at https   msdn microsoft com en-us library 14h5k7ff aspx  stores its creation date  You can access this in Python through os path getctime   or the  st ctime attribute of the result of a call to os stat    This won t work on Unix  where the ctime is the last time that the file s attributes or content were changed  On Mac  as well as some other Unix-based OSes  you can use the  st birthtime attribute of the result of a call to os stat    On Linux  this is currently impossible  at least without writing a C extension for Python  Although some file systems commonly used with Linux do store creation dates  for example  ext4 stores them in st crtime    the Linux kernel offers no way of accessing them  in particular  the structs it returns from stat   calls in C  as of the latest kernel version  don t contain any creation date fields  You can also see that the identifier st crtime doesn t currently feature anywhere in the Python source  At least if you re on ext4  the data is attached to the inodes in the file system  but there s no convenient way of accessing it   The next-best thing on Linux is to access the file s mtime  through either os path getmtime   or the  st mtime attribute of an os stat   result  This will give you the last time the file s content was modified  which may be adequate for some use cases    Putting this all together  cross-platform code should look something like this     import os import platform  def creation date path to file               Try to get the date that a file was created  falling back to when it was     last modified if that isn t possible      See http   stackoverflow com a 39501288 1709587 for explanation              if platform system       Windows           return os path getctime path to file      else          stat   os stat path to file          try              return stat st birthtime         except AttributeError                We re probably on Linux  No easy way to get creation dates here                so we ll settle for when its content was last modified              return stat st mtime

User · Answer

If following symbolic links is not important  you can also use the os lstat builtin    gt  gt  gt  os lstat  2048 py   posix stat result st mode 33188  st ino 4172202  st dev 16777218L  st nlink 1  st uid 501  st gid 20  st size 2078  st atime 1423378041  st mtime 1423377552  st ctime 1423377553   gt  gt  gt  os lstat  2048 py   st atime 1423378041 0

User · Answer

import os  time  datetime  file    somefile txt  print file   print  Modified   print os stat file  -2   print os stat file  st mtime  print os path getmtime file    print    print  Created   print os stat file  -1   print os stat file  st ctime  print os path getctime file    print    modified   os path getmtime file  print  Date modified    time ctime modified   print  Date modified   datetime datetime fromtimestamp modified   year month day hour minute second time localtime modified   -3  print  Date modified   02d  02d  d  02d  02d  02d   day month year hour minute second    print    created   os path getctime file  print  Date created    time ctime created   print  Date created   datetime datetime fromtimestamp created   year month day hour minute second time localtime created   -3  print  Date created   02d  02d  d  02d  02d  02d   day month year hour minute second     prints  somefile txt Modified 1429613446 1429613446 0 1429613446 0  Created 1517491049 1517491049 28306 1517491049 28306  Date modified  Tue Apr 21 11 50 46 2015 Date modified  2015-04-21 11 50 46 Date modified  21 04 2015 11 50 46  Date created  Thu Feb  1 13 17 29 2018 Date created  2018-02-01 13 17 29 283060 Date created  01 02 2018 13 17 29

User · Answer

There are two methods to get the mod time, os.path.getmtime() or os.stat(), but the ctime is not reliable cross-platform (see below).

os.path.getmtime()

getmtime(path)
Return the time of last modification of path. The return value is a number giving the number of seconds since the epoch (see the time module). Raise os.error if the file does not exist or is inaccessible. New in version 1.5.2. Changed in version 2.3: If os.stat_float_times() returns True, the result is a floating point number.

os.stat()

stat(path)
Perform a stat() system call on the given path. The return value is an object whose attributes correspond to the members of the stat structure, namely: st_mode (protection bits), st_ino (inode number), st_dev (device), st_nlink (number of hard links), st_uid (user ID of owner), st_gid (group ID of owner), st_size (size of file, in bytes), st_atime (time of most recent access), st_mtime (time of most recent content modification), st_ctime (platform dependent; time of most recent metadata change on Unix, or the time of creation on Windows):

>>> import os
>>> statinfo = os.stat('somefile.txt')
>>> statinfo
(33188, 422511L, 769L, 1, 1032, 100, 926L, 1105022698,1105022732, 1105022732)
>>> statinfo.st_size
926L
>>>

In the above example you would use statinfo.st_mtime or statinfo.st_ctime to get the mtime and ctime, respectively.

User · Answer

If following symbolic links is not important  you can also use the os lstat builtin    gt  gt  gt  os lstat  2048 py   posix stat result st mode 33188  st ino 4172202  st dev 16777218L  st nlink 1  st uid 501  st gid 20  st size 2078  st atime 1423378041  st mtime 1423377552  st ctime 1423377553   gt  gt  gt  os lstat  2048 py   st atime 1423378041 0

User · Answer

Getting some sort of modification date in a cross-platform way is easy - just call os path getmtime path  and you ll get the Unix timestamp of when the file at path was last modified   Getting file creation dates  on the other hand  is fiddly and platform-dependent  differing even between the three big OSes    On Windows  a file s ctime  documented at https   msdn microsoft com en-us library 14h5k7ff aspx  stores its creation date  You can access this in Python through os path getctime   or the  st ctime attribute of the result of a call to os stat    This won t work on Unix  where the ctime is the last time that the file s attributes or content were changed  On Mac  as well as some other Unix-based OSes  you can use the  st birthtime attribute of the result of a call to os stat    On Linux  this is currently impossible  at least without writing a C extension for Python  Although some file systems commonly used with Linux do store creation dates  for example  ext4 stores them in st crtime    the Linux kernel offers no way of accessing them  in particular  the structs it returns from stat   calls in C  as of the latest kernel version  don t contain any creation date fields  You can also see that the identifier st crtime doesn t currently feature anywhere in the Python source  At least if you re on ext4  the data is attached to the inodes in the file system  but there s no convenient way of accessing it   The next-best thing on Linux is to access the file s mtime  through either os path getmtime   or the  st mtime attribute of an os stat   result  This will give you the last time the file s content was modified  which may be adequate for some use cases    Putting this all together  cross-platform code should look something like this     import os import platform  def creation date path to file               Try to get the date that a file was created  falling back to when it was     last modified if that isn t possible      See http   stackoverflow com a 39501288 1709587 for explanation              if platform system       Windows           return os path getctime path to file      else          stat   os stat path to file          try              return stat st birthtime         except AttributeError                We re probably on Linux  No easy way to get creation dates here                so we ll settle for when its content was last modified              return stat st mtime

User · Answer

os stat does include the creation time   There s just no definition of st anything for the element of os stat   that contains the time   So try this   os stat  feedparser py   8   Compare that with your create date on the file in ls -lah  They should be the same

User · Answer

In Python 3 4 and above  you can use the object oriented pathlib module interface which includes wrappers for much of the os module   Here is an example of getting the file stats    gt  gt  gt  import pathlib  gt  gt  gt  fname   pathlib Path  test py    gt  gt  gt  assert fname exists    f No such file   fname      check that the file exists  gt  gt  gt  print fname stat    os stat result st mode 33206  st ino 5066549581564298  st dev 573948050  st nlink 1  st uid 0  st gid 0  st size 413  st atime 1523480272  st mtime 1539787740  st ctime 1523480272    For more information about what os stat result contains  refer to the documentation  For the modification time you want fname stat   st mtime    gt  gt  gt  import datetime  gt  gt  gt  mtime   datetime datetime fromtimestamp fname stat   st mtime   gt  gt  gt  print mtime  datetime datetime 2018  10  17  10  49  0  249980    If you want the creation time on Windows  or the most recent metadata change on Unix  you would use fname stat   st ctime    gt  gt  gt  ctime   datetime datetime fromtimestamp fname stat   st ctime   gt  gt  gt  print ctime  datetime datetime 2018  4  11  16  57  52  151953    This article has more helpful info and examples for the pathlib module

User · Answer

You have a couple of choices  For one  you can use the os path getmtime and os path getctime functions   import os path  time print  last modified   s    time ctime os path getmtime file    print  created   s    time ctime os path getctime file      Your other option is to use os stat   import os  time  mode  ino  dev  nlink  uid  gid  size  atime  mtime  ctime    os stat file  print  last modified   s    time ctime mtime     Note  ctime   does not refer to creation time on  nix systems  but rather the last time the inode data changed   thanks to kojiro for making that fact more clear in the comments by providing a link to an interesting blog post

User · Answer

os stat does include the creation time   There s just no definition of st anything for the element of os stat   that contains the time   So try this   os stat  feedparser py   8   Compare that with your create date on the file in ls -lah  They should be the same

User · Answer

In Python 3 4 and above  you can use the object oriented pathlib module interface which includes wrappers for much of the os module   Here is an example of getting the file stats    gt  gt  gt  import pathlib  gt  gt  gt  fname   pathlib Path  test py    gt  gt  gt  assert fname exists    f No such file   fname      check that the file exists  gt  gt  gt  print fname stat    os stat result st mode 33206  st ino 5066549581564298  st dev 573948050  st nlink 1  st uid 0  st gid 0  st size 413  st atime 1523480272  st mtime 1539787740  st ctime 1523480272    For more information about what os stat result contains  refer to the documentation  For the modification time you want fname stat   st mtime    gt  gt  gt  import datetime  gt  gt  gt  mtime   datetime datetime fromtimestamp fname stat   st mtime   gt  gt  gt  print mtime  datetime datetime 2018  10  17  10  49  0  249980    If you want the creation time on Windows  or the most recent metadata change on Unix  you would use fname stat   st ctime    gt  gt  gt  ctime   datetime datetime fromtimestamp fname stat   st ctime   gt  gt  gt  print ctime  datetime datetime 2018  4  11  16  57  52  151953    This article has more helpful info and examples for the pathlib module

User · Answer

gt  gt  gt  import os  gt  gt  gt  os stat  feedparser py   st mtime 1136961142 0  gt  gt  gt  os stat  feedparser py   st ctime 1222664012 233  gt  gt  gt

User · Answer

gt  gt  gt  import os  gt  gt  gt  os stat  feedparser py   st mtime 1136961142 0  gt  gt  gt  os stat  feedparser py   st ctime 1222664012 233  gt  gt  gt

User · Answer

There are two methods to get the mod time, os.path.getmtime() or os.stat(), but the ctime is not reliable cross-platform (see below).

os.path.getmtime()

getmtime(path)
Return the time of last modification of path. The return value is a number giving the number of seconds since the epoch (see the time module). Raise os.error if the file does not exist or is inaccessible. New in version 1.5.2. Changed in version 2.3: If os.stat_float_times() returns True, the result is a floating point number.

os.stat()

stat(path)
Perform a stat() system call on the given path. The return value is an object whose attributes correspond to the members of the stat structure, namely: st_mode (protection bits), st_ino (inode number), st_dev (device), st_nlink (number of hard links), st_uid (user ID of owner), st_gid (group ID of owner), st_size (size of file, in bytes), st_atime (time of most recent access), st_mtime (time of most recent content modification), st_ctime (platform dependent; time of most recent metadata change on Unix, or the time of creation on Windows):

>>> import os
>>> statinfo = os.stat('somefile.txt')
>>> statinfo
(33188, 422511L, 769L, 1, 1032, 100, 926L, 1105022698,1105022732, 1105022732)
>>> statinfo.st_size
926L
>>>

In the above example you would use statinfo.st_mtime or statinfo.st_ctime to get the mtime and ctime, respectively.

User · Answer

gt  gt  gt  import os  gt  gt  gt  os stat  feedparser py   st mtime 1136961142 0  gt  gt  gt  os stat  feedparser py   st ctime 1222664012 233  gt  gt  gt

User · Answer

I was able to get creation time on posix by running the system s stat command and parsing the output   commands getoutput  stat FILENAME   split       7    Running stat outside of python from Terminal  OS X  returned   805306374 3382786932 -rwx------ 1 km staff 0 1098083  Aug 29 12 02 05 2013   Aug 29 12 02 05 2013   Aug 29 12 02 20 2013   Aug 27 12 35 28 2013  61440 2150 0 testfile txt       where the fourth datetime is the file creation  rather than ctime change time as other comments noted

User · Answer

You have a couple of choices  For one  you can use the os path getmtime and os path getctime functions   import os path  time print  last modified   s    time ctime os path getmtime file    print  created   s    time ctime os path getctime file      Your other option is to use os stat   import os  time  mode  ino  dev  nlink  uid  gid  size  atime  mtime  ctime    os stat file  print  last modified   s    time ctime mtime     Note  ctime   does not refer to creation time on  nix systems  but rather the last time the inode data changed   thanks to kojiro for making that fact more clear in the comments by providing a link to an interesting blog post

User · Answer

os stat returns a named tuple with st mtime and st ctime attributes  The modification time is st mtime on both platforms  unfortunately  on Windows  ctime means  creation time   whereas on POSIX it means  change time   I m not aware of any way to get the creation time on POSIX platforms

User · Answer

You have a couple of choices  For one  you can use the os path getmtime and os path getctime functions   import os path  time print  last modified   s    time ctime os path getmtime file    print  created   s    time ctime os path getctime file      Your other option is to use os stat   import os  time  mode  ino  dev  nlink  uid  gid  size  atime  mtime  ctime    os stat file  print  last modified   s    time ctime mtime     Note  ctime   does not refer to creation time on  nix systems  but rather the last time the inode data changed   thanks to kojiro for making that fact more clear in the comments by providing a link to an interesting blog post

User · Answer

os stat https   docs python org 2 library stat html module-stat  edit  In newer code you should probably use os path getmtime    thanks Christian Oudard   but note that it returns a floating point value of time t with fraction seconds  if your OS supports it

User · Answer

os stat returns a named tuple with st mtime and st ctime attributes  The modification time is st mtime on both platforms  unfortunately  on Windows  ctime means  creation time   whereas on POSIX it means  change time   I m not aware of any way to get the creation time on POSIX platforms

User · Answer

os stat does include the creation time   There s just no definition of st anything for the element of os stat   that contains the time   So try this   os stat  feedparser py   8   Compare that with your create date on the file in ls -lah  They should be the same

User · Answer

You have a couple of choices  For one  you can use the os path getmtime and os path getctime functions   import os path  time print  last modified   s    time ctime os path getmtime file    print  created   s    time ctime os path getctime file      Your other option is to use os stat   import os  time  mode  ino  dev  nlink  uid  gid  size  atime  mtime  ctime    os stat file  print  last modified   s    time ctime mtime     Note  ctime   does not refer to creation time on  nix systems  but rather the last time the inode data changed   thanks to kojiro for making that fact more clear in the comments by providing a link to an interesting blog post

User · Answer

The best function to use for this is os path getmtime    Internally  this just uses os stat filename  st mtime   The datetime module is the best manipulating timestamps  so you can get the modification date as a datetime object like this   import os import datetime def modification date filename       t   os path getmtime filename      return datetime datetime fromtimestamp t    Usage example    gt  gt  gt  d   modification date   var log syslog    gt  gt  gt  print d 2009-10-06 10 50 01  gt  gt  gt  print repr d  datetime datetime 2009  10  6  10  50  1

User · Answer

os stat https   docs python org 2 library stat html module-stat  edit  In newer code you should probably use os path getmtime    thanks Christian Oudard   but note that it returns a floating point value of time t with fraction seconds  if your OS supports it

User · Answer

import os  time  datetime  file    somefile txt  print file   print  Modified   print os stat file  -2   print os stat file  st mtime  print os path getmtime file    print    print  Created   print os stat file  -1   print os stat file  st ctime  print os path getctime file    print    modified   os path getmtime file  print  Date modified    time ctime modified   print  Date modified   datetime datetime fromtimestamp modified   year month day hour minute second time localtime modified   -3  print  Date modified   02d  02d  d  02d  02d  02d   day month year hour minute second    print    created   os path getctime file  print  Date created    time ctime created   print  Date created   datetime datetime fromtimestamp created   year month day hour minute second time localtime created   -3  print  Date created   02d  02d  d  02d  02d  02d   day month year hour minute second     prints  somefile txt Modified 1429613446 1429613446 0 1429613446 0  Created 1517491049 1517491049 28306 1517491049 28306  Date modified  Tue Apr 21 11 50 46 2015 Date modified  2015-04-21 11 50 46 Date modified  21 04 2015 11 50 46  Date created  Thu Feb  1 13 17 29 2018 Date created  2018-02-01 13 17 29 283060 Date created  01 02 2018 13 17 29

User · Answer

os stat https   docs python org 2 library stat html module-stat  edit  In newer code you should probably use os path getmtime    thanks Christian Oudard   but note that it returns a floating point value of time t with fraction seconds  if your OS supports it

User · Answer

The best function to use for this is os path getmtime    Internally  this just uses os stat filename  st mtime   The datetime module is the best manipulating timestamps  so you can get the modification date as a datetime object like this   import os import datetime def modification date filename       t   os path getmtime filename      return datetime datetime fromtimestamp t    Usage example    gt  gt  gt  d   modification date   var log syslog    gt  gt  gt  print d 2009-10-06 10 50 01  gt  gt  gt  print repr d  datetime datetime 2009  10  6  10  50  1

User · Answer

os stat returns a named tuple with st mtime and st ctime attributes  The modification time is st mtime on both platforms  unfortunately  on Windows  ctime means  creation time   whereas on POSIX it means  change time   I m not aware of any way to get the creation time on POSIX platforms

User · Answer

os stat returns a named tuple with st mtime and st ctime attributes  The modification time is st mtime on both platforms  unfortunately  on Windows  ctime means  creation time   whereas on POSIX it means  change time   I m not aware of any way to get the creation time on POSIX platforms

User · Answer

It may worth taking a look at the crtime library which implements cross-platform access to the file creation time   from crtime import get crtimes in dir  for fname  date in get crtimes in dir      raise on error True  as epoch False       print fname  date        file a py Mon Mar 18 20 51 18 CET 2019

User · Answer

There are two methods to get the mod time, os.path.getmtime() or os.stat(), but the ctime is not reliable cross-platform (see below).

os.path.getmtime()

getmtime(path)
Return the time of last modification of path. The return value is a number giving the number of seconds since the epoch (see the time module). Raise os.error if the file does not exist or is inaccessible. New in version 1.5.2. Changed in version 2.3: If os.stat_float_times() returns True, the result is a floating point number.

os.stat()

stat(path)
Perform a stat() system call on the given path. The return value is an object whose attributes correspond to the members of the stat structure, namely: st_mode (protection bits), st_ino (inode number), st_dev (device), st_nlink (number of hard links), st_uid (user ID of owner), st_gid (group ID of owner), st_size (size of file, in bytes), st_atime (time of most recent access), st_mtime (time of most recent content modification), st_ctime (platform dependent; time of most recent metadata change on Unix, or the time of creation on Windows):

>>> import os
>>> statinfo = os.stat('somefile.txt')
>>> statinfo
(33188, 422511L, 769L, 1, 1032, 100, 926L, 1105022698,1105022732, 1105022732)
>>> statinfo.st_size
926L
>>>

In the above example you would use statinfo.st_mtime or statinfo.st_ctime to get the mtime and ctime, respectively.

User · Answer

os stat does include the creation time   There s just no definition of st anything for the element of os stat   that contains the time   So try this   os stat  feedparser py   8   Compare that with your create date on the file in ls -lah  They should be the same

User · Answer

I was able to get creation time on posix by running the system s stat command and parsing the output   commands getoutput  stat FILENAME   split       7    Running stat outside of python from Terminal  OS X  returned   805306374 3382786932 -rwx------ 1 km staff 0 1098083  Aug 29 12 02 05 2013   Aug 29 12 02 05 2013   Aug 29 12 02 20 2013   Aug 27 12 35 28 2013  61440 2150 0 testfile txt       where the fourth datetime is the file creation  rather than ctime change time as other comments noted

User · Answer

gt  gt  gt  import os  gt  gt  gt  os stat  feedparser py   st mtime 1136961142 0  gt  gt  gt  os stat  feedparser py   st ctime 1222664012 233  gt  gt  gt

User · Answer

os stat https   docs python org 2 library stat html module-stat  edit  In newer code you should probably use os path getmtime    thanks Christian Oudard   but note that it returns a floating point value of time t with fraction seconds  if your OS supports it

User · Answer

It may worth taking a look at the crtime library which implements cross-platform access to the file creation time   from crtime import get crtimes in dir  for fname  date in get crtimes in dir      raise on error True  as epoch False       print fname  date        file a py Mon Mar 18 20 51 18 CET 2019

[python] How to get file creation & modification date/times in Python?

os.path.getmtime()

os.stat()

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