Changing last modified date or time via PowerShell

Question

Is it possible to change a file or folders last modified date/time via PowerShell?

I have a folder folder1/ and I want to change the last modified date and time of that folder and it's contents via PowerShell.

Answer 1

Get the file object then set the property:

$file = Get-Item C:\Path\TO\File.txt
$file.LastWriteTime = (Get-Date)

or for a folder:

$folder = Get-Item C:\folder1
$folder.LastWriteTime = (Get-Date)

Answer 2

The following way explained here works for me. So I used:

Get-ChildItem  C:\testFile1.txt | % {$_.LastWriteTime = '01/11/2005 06:01:36'}

Do not get confused by the "get-*" command... it will work regardless that it is a get instead of write or something. Keep also noted as written in the source that you need to use YOUR configured data format and maybe not the one in my example above.

Answer 3

Yes, it is possible to change the last modified date. Here is a one liner example

powershell foreach($file in Get-ChildItem folder1) {$(Get-Item $file.Fullname).lastwritetime=$(Get-Date).AddHours(-5)}

Answer 4

To do a kind of unix touch in powershell on all files :

(Get-ChildItem -Path . –File –Recurse) | % {$_.LastWriteTime = (Get-Date)}

or all files and folders:

(Get-ChildItem -Path . –Recurse) | % {$_.LastWriteTime = (Get-Date)}

Answer 5

get-childitem d: \ * -recurse | % {$_.LastWriteTime = (Get-Date)}

This works for all files and folders in a tree.