Total Commander

Sorry; this seems ot be an english only forum ...

So the question is: how to keep creation time/date and file modification time/date when copying with TCandroid. When copying with TeraCopy on Windows-PC that is not a problem – you can keep all the dates. But with TCandroid even the file modification time/date is changed to the time of copying/moving – what absolutely does not make any sense as the file was not modified at all.

Btw: specially with photos that have EXIF-data integrated changing the modification time/date does not make sense at all.

Where is the setting to keep time/date at least for file modification time/date – but also for creation and access time/date.


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orig. (german)

Änderungs- und Erstellungsdatum beibehalten

Es ist ein Ärgernis, daß beim kopieren von Dateien (z.B. vom internen Speicher auf die Speicherkarte) nicht nur das Erstellungsdatum auf den Kopierzeitpunkt gesetzt wird (was auf dem PC mit TeraCopy unterbunden werden kann), sondern auch das Änderungsdatum wird auf den Kopierzeitpunkt gesetzt – was schlicht eine Verfälschung der Metataten darstellt – insbesondere bei mit der Kamera aufgenommenen Bildern mit EXIF-Daten drin (auch das Aufnahmedatum).

Wie läßt sich nicht nur (mindestens) das Änderungsdatum beibehalten, aber auch das Erstelldatum?

Which Android version do you use? Total Commander does copy the timestamps with the files if the system supports it, but unfortunately it doesn't work on all Android versions.

Kakadu wrote: ↑2023-09-16, 09:21 UTC Sorry; this seems ot be an english only forum ...

Warum sagst du das? Im Forumnamen steht nicht (English).

I am using various Android versions (among them mostly (but not only) 4/7/10 ... Keeping time stamps failed in v7 ...

In which versions are time stamps copied; and in which does this fail?

white wrote: ↑2023-09-17, 22:00 UTC

Kakadu wrote: ↑2023-09-16, 09:21 UTC Sorry; this seems ot be an english only forum ...

Warum sagst du das? Im Forumnamen steht nicht (English).

Ich schreibe ja "scheint zu sein* ... ... a) ist hier (fast) alles auf englisch (auch wenn nicht direkt angeschrieben), und b) sollen auch Nichtdeutschsprecher keinen Übersetzungsdienst nutzen müssen ... und c) ist es mir eigentlich egal, ob ich auf deutsch, englisch, französisch (oder ggf. weiteren Sprachen) schreibe; der Aufwand insbesondere für englisch ist nicht höher als für deutsch oder französisch ...

It depends on whether Total Commander has native write access to the file system or not. If you get a message "write protected!" and then have to choose the base folder from an Android dialog, then it usually doesn't work because the file have to be copied to a virtual folder. This method doesn't have a function to set the time stamp. Sometimes it helps to get the underlying file handle and set the time stamp to it, but not always.

Where and how should this "write protected!" message appear? I don't remember ever have seen it.

To keep in mind: the task here is the following: usually I declare the SD-Card as default write disk. If done photos and videos made with the built in camera are saved directly on the SD-Card. To take them to the PC I take the SD-Card out of the Android and put it in the appropriate slot of the PC. If done so TeraCopy can normally access it and copy the files without damaging the time stamps. But if (for any reason – device was turned on without SD-Card etc.) internal space is declared as default, the files have to be either copied from the device via USB-cable to the PC (where TeraCopy cannot access it and creation date is reset to the time of copying) – or the files have to be copied to the SD-Card inside the Android device ... and TotalCommander is meant to do that ... but this fails totally and not only creation date, but also modification date is set to the copying time (what does not make sense at all). Third method would be to copy the files over network with TotalCommander from Android device to a server drive where PC also has access ... And the fourth method would be to access the directory of the Android device from the PC over network (but I don't know if this is even possible or not).

I have been copying / moving files between Android and Windows for many years using this add-on for Total Commander on Windows:
https://www.uniqtec.eu/index.php/android-adb/
The timestamp is always preserved in both directions!

Where this tool is not available to me and I want to copy data with original timestamp from Android to Windows, I zip the data with Total Commander under Android (save without compression), copy this ZIP file to Windows and there I can unzip the data with the original timestamp.

a) zipping the DCIM-Folder and copying the DCIM.RAR to Windows does not work; the created time stamps are set to the time of copying.

b) how to make it work that created time stamps keep it's values when copying with TC?

@Kakadu
Be brave, click on the link in my post above your question "b)"!

There was some confusion with installing advice mismatch ... now it's installed, but does not seem to work as expected ... created time stamps are set to time of copying ...

Btw.: the method for now is to just copy them and after copying to copy modify date to created and accessd with BulkFileChanger from NirSoft

OK, now the solution seems to be found: a) on android use RAR and pack the stuff into a ZIP file (not into a RAR file as in RAR modif and access dates are not preserved). Bring that ZIP to the PC, and then DO NOT unpack with WinRAR, but with Explorer – then the modif & access dates are preserved ...

I have absolutely no problems with keeping the timestamp via ADB over USB and WiFi, no matter in which direction I copy.

But perhaps you can achieve the desired result with MyPhoneExplorer:
https://www.fjsoft.at/en/
I use it to back up all folders and consistency of the time stamps is no problem with it either!

How does your TC configuration look like?

I am not aware of any special features in Total Commander that affect the preservation of the date.
In the Android ADB add-on, I have adopted the default settings and selected "Native 8.1" as the file list command.

You will have to find out for yourself what settings you may have changed.
Reset everything to default and start from the beginning ...