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Date of folders has changed without my modifying anything

Does anybody know, why the "Date Modified" of a number of folders in my home has changed?

I have not touched those folders nor its files ur subfolders.

Many of the folders have exactly the same last modified date. See attached screenshot below.

But it seems like there have been different occasions that caused those changes.


It is really annoying because it makes it impossible for me to find files in a folder tree based on the date.

I really need to stop whatever is causing this.


This happened on my MacBookPro running macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina).



MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Feb 15, 2021 1:07 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 15, 2021 4:30 AM

GabrielZ wrote:

Does anybody know, why the "Date Modified" of a number of folders in my home has changed?
I have not touched those folders nor its files ur subfolders.
Many of the folders have exactly the same last modified date. See attached screenshot below.
But it seems like there have been different occasions that caused those changes.

It is really annoying because it makes it impossible for me to find files in a folder tree based on the date.
I really need to stop whatever is causing this.

This happened on my MacBookPro running macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina).


https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/7f65c372-6b1b-41e6-995a-e22efdc51db9



Are these 'Documents' stored on the Cloud/ synch in iCloud /iCloud Drive or some such,


or all these files/folders are local only?

please advise...


It appears these are stored/synch in iCloud— What I can say anytime there is a server change, ie something fails on Apples end and the Drives get swapped out to correct the issue and Data restored from backup—


All files are marked with the new date, because the server was modified.


This is the way it has always been on the server side. Nothing you can do here.


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3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 15, 2021 4:30 AM in response to GabrielZ

GabrielZ wrote:

Does anybody know, why the "Date Modified" of a number of folders in my home has changed?
I have not touched those folders nor its files ur subfolders.
Many of the folders have exactly the same last modified date. See attached screenshot below.
But it seems like there have been different occasions that caused those changes.

It is really annoying because it makes it impossible for me to find files in a folder tree based on the date.
I really need to stop whatever is causing this.

This happened on my MacBookPro running macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina).


https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/7f65c372-6b1b-41e6-995a-e22efdc51db9



Are these 'Documents' stored on the Cloud/ synch in iCloud /iCloud Drive or some such,


or all these files/folders are local only?

please advise...


It appears these are stored/synch in iCloud— What I can say anytime there is a server change, ie something fails on Apples end and the Drives get swapped out to correct the issue and Data restored from backup—


All files are marked with the new date, because the server was modified.


This is the way it has always been on the server side. Nothing you can do here.


Feb 15, 2021 5:22 AM in response to leroydouglas

A quick check seems to reveal that the problem does, indeed, only affect folders under Documents and Desktop, both of which are in iCloud Drive.


I don't see why a copy of the files/folders to new cloud drives can't be done without changing the modified date - rsync, dd, and similar Unix tools are capable of preserving the modification time, I think.


OTOH, you seem to have definitive info regarding this, so, thanks a lot for your insights!


Feb 15, 2021 7:55 AM in response to GabrielZ

GabrielZ wrote:

A quick check seems to reveal that the problem does, indeed, only affect folders under Documents and Desktop, both of which are in iCloud Drive.

I don't see why a copy of the files/folders to new cloud drives can't be done without changing the modified date - rsync, dd, and similar Unix tools are capable of preserving the modification time, I think.

OTOH, you seem to have definitive info regarding this, so, thanks a lot for your insights!


Well this may be your rsync/ dd / or similar...


This was a hardware issue/change on Apple servers beyond your control.


It is obvious you did not edit every file/folder in question at exactly the same time/date; but does reflect a new server coming on line after data was restored.

Date of folders has changed without my modifying anything

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