Mike's Restore Timestamps App

The problem it fixes

Every file on Windows carries three dates: when it was created, when it was last changed, and when it was last opened. When you copy a folder to a new drive with the normal drag and drop, the "modified" date survives but the "created" date is replaced with the moment of the copy. Nothing warns you. You only notice weeks later when you sort your photos by date and they are all in one clump.

If you still have the old drive, the dates are still on it, and this app can read them across and put them back file by file. If the old drive is gone, there are two fallbacks that recover what can be recovered, and the app is honest about which is which. And if nothing can be recovered but you know when the files are from, you can simply tell it the date.

Drop the two folders in, press Scan, and check the preview before anything is written.

What it does

It has five ways of working. You pick one at the top of the window.

Whichever mode you choose, the process is the same:

1. Drop the folders in. The original on the left, the copy on the right. You can also click a zone to browse, and it remembers recent folders.
2. Scan. The app reads every file and folder and builds a preview: the date each one has now, the date it will get, and a status. Nothing is written yet.
3. Check the preview. Untick anything you want left alone. Filter to just the files that will change, or search for a name.
4. Apply. It asks once for confirmation, then works through the list. Each change is written to a log before it is made.
5. Undo if you need to. Press Revert, pick the log from any earlier run, and the app puts every value back exactly as it was, in reverse order.

Setting a date yourself

Sometimes there is nothing left to restore from. The old drive has been thrown away, the files are scans or documents with no date inside them, and all you know is that the whole folder came from one time. A box of photos you scanned in January 1999, say.

The Custom date mode is for exactly that. Type in the date and time, tick which of Created, Modified and Accessed you want set, and press Scan. Every file in the folder appears in the preview with the date it will get. Untick any that should be left alone, press Apply, and they are done. It is one value across the folder rather than a different date on each file, and like every other mode it is logged first, so you can undo it if you change your mind.

One oddity to know about: if you set a date earlier than 1980, Windows stores it correctly and the file's Properties window shows it, but Explorer's Date columns show a blank. That is a limit of Explorer, inherited from a file system format older than most of the files it now displays, not something the app can work around. The app lets you do it, and warns you before you apply.

Things it is careful about

• It never guesses. A file that has been edited or replaced since the scan is skipped and marked as a conflict rather than changed. A file that is open in another program is skipped as busy. You can scan again and retry them.
• It checks its own work. After each change it reads the file back and confirms the dates took. If they did not, it says so.
• It stays inside the folder you gave it. Shortcuts, junctions and symbolic links are listed but never followed, so it cannot wander off into another drive.
• It keeps its log where it can not do harm. If you set the log folder inside the folder you are fixing, it refuses, because writing logs there would disturb the very dates it is restoring.
• If the log ever fails mid-run, the run stops. The rule is simple: no change without a record of what was there before.

What it does not do

I would rather be straight with you about the limits than have you download it and be disappointed.

• It does not copy files. It fixes the dates on files you have already copied. For the copy itself, use Explorer as normal, or if you know your way around a command prompt, robocopy /COPY:DAT /DCOPY:T keeps the dates in the first place.
• It only writes to drives formatted as NTFS or ReFS, which is every normal Windows hard drive and SSD. USB sticks and camera cards formatted as FAT32 or exFAT store dates too roughly for the app to be sure of its results, so it tells you and stops.
• It cannot work out dates that no longer exist. If the old drive is gone and the files are not photos, the From Modified mode is the best guess it can make, and it labels that plainly. If you know the date, the Custom date mode lets you supply it instead.
• It skips files that have more than one name (hard links), because changing one would change the other without you seeing it.
• Folders get their created and modified dates back but not the "last accessed" date, because Windows itself rewrites that every time a folder is opened, so there is no original to restore.
• It is Windows only. There is no Mac or Linux version.

Who it is for

I wrote this after the same conversation for the third time: someone had bought a bigger drive, copied everything across, and then rang me because all their photos had "gone wrong". The photos were fine. Only the dates had gone, and the tool that could put them back did not exist in a form I would hand to a client.

It will probably suit you if:

• You have just moved your files to a new drive, a new computer or a NAS box, and the dates are all wrong.
• You keep photos or documents organised by date and the copy has scrambled that.
• You want to see what is going to happen before it happens, and be able to undo it afterwards.

It is probably not for you if:

• You only have a handful of files. Right-click, Properties, and a free tool such as Microsoft's own PowerShell can set a date on one file in less time than this takes to download.
• You want to set different dates on different files one at a time. The custom date mode sets one value across a folder; it is not a per-file date editor.
• You are on a Mac.

Before you use it

The app changes the dates on files. It does not touch the contents, and every change is logged first so it can be reversed. Even so, please take the usual sensible precautions. They cost you two minutes and they protect you against my mistakes as well as your own.

• Get the folders the right way round. The original goes on the left, the copy you want fixed goes on the right. The app will not let you point both at the same place, but it cannot tell if you have swapped them, so read the preview before you press Apply.
• Match like with like. If you copied C:\Photos to D:\Photos, drop those two in. Dropping C:\ on one side and D:\Photos on the other gives you a preview full of "missing", and the app does nothing, which is the right outcome but a waste of your time.
• Close the files in anything else first, so nothing has a lock on them. Locked files are skipped, not damaged, but you will have to run it again for them.
• Try a small folder first. Run it on one subfolder, look at the result in Explorer, and then do the lot.
• Leave the log folder where it is. By default the logs sit next to the app. You need them if you ever want to undo a run.

Safety and trust

This app is completely free. There are no adverts, no upsells, no account to create, no nag screens, and nothing that phones home. It never connects to the internet. It does not send your files anywhere and it does not collect anything about you. Everything it does happens on your own computer, and you can read every change it made in the log file it leaves behind.

Please scan the download with your own antivirus if you would like extra reassurance. I would rather you checked than simply took my word for it. Your antivirus is already on your machine and it costs you nothing to use it. If you would like a SHA256 checksum of the file so you can verify it has not been altered in transit, ask me and I will publish one here.

Disclaimer

I give this away for nothing, so it does not come with a support service. I cannot promise to answer questions about it, fix problems with it, or keep updating it. If you need a tool that is properly supported and built for your situation, that is the paid work below.