There is just no standard way to get it, but there is a way: However, some filesystems (as ext4 or XFS), do save this information within the file metadatas. Unfortunately, the stat(2) API does not provide a way to get the file creation time, as it is not required by the Unix standards. In particular, the ctime is always more recent than the mtime (file content modification time) unless the mtime has been explicitly set to a date in the future. The inode change time is updated whenever anything about the file changes (contents or metadata) except that the ctime isn't updated when the file is merely read (even if the atime is updated). Note that the ctime ( ls -lc) is not the file creation time, it's the inode change time. The stat utility can show the creation time, called “birth time” in GNU utilities, so under Cygwin you can show files sorted by birth time with stat -c '%W %n' * | sort -k1n. Windows also stores a creation time, but it's not always exposed to ports of unix utilities, for example Cygwin ls doesn't have an option to show it. For example, on Mac OS X (the only example I know of), use ls -tU. If your unix variant has a creation time, look at its documentation. If you need creation time, use a version control system: define creation time as the check-in time. You can't make ls print it because the information is not recorded. If you need any help using these search tips, let me know and I’ll be happy to offer some help.Most unices do not have a concept of file creation time. For your particular search, just replace the words either side of the ‘NOT’ boolean.ĭid the tips in this article prove to be useful? We hope they did. This would return all files with the word recipe in the name but exclude all files with the word chicken in the name. You can also exclude certain words from your search.įor example, if you are looking for a recipe document that you’ve saved that you know has the word recipe in it, but you don’t want a chicken recipe, you could use the command ‘recipe NOT chicken’. There’s no limit to how many search parameters you can use in one search, so by combining multiple, you’ll save lots of time trying to locate the file. png file that is over 1000 pixels wide and you know it was created before the 20th of February 2018, you can use this command: ‘ type. Remember that you can combine any combination of these search filters in a single search.
FIND FILES BY DATE IN WINDOWS 10 WINDOWS
Thanks for taking a look at our advanced Windows Explorer file search tips. This will only show the files that are between that range. For example, if you know that a file is between 200MB and 300MB, you can use the command: ‘size: 500MB – 800MB’. Using these commands is great for smaller files, but for files that are larger than 128MB, you should use a search range. You can use the following quick commands for certain sizes: If you know the rough file size, you can use the ‘size:’ command to filter out results. Height: ’ to look for files made before or after specific dates, respectively.Width: x for files over a specific height.Width: >x for files over a specific width.If you don’t know the exact dimensions, but you know it’s within a certain limit, you can instead use the following search parameters: Simply replace ‘x’ with the exact dimensions. If you know the dimensions of the image, you can type in width: x, height: x. Below we have a number of tips exclusive for images on your PC. First let’s take a look at the options you have available for tracking down specific images.