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How to Change Modified Date of a File in Windows

Want to change or update the “Date Modified” attribute? This article shows how to change the Modified Date attribute of any file in Windows.

For every file, Windows has three date and time attributes. They are the Created, Modified, and Accessed date and time, which shows when the file was created, last modified, and last opened, respectively. As you can guess, the three attributes are pretty self-explanatory.

All these three date and time attributes are fully managed by Windows. That means Windows doesn’t provide native options to change the date and time attributes of any file. For example, if you open the properties window of a file, you will see no option to change the date or time attributes.

However, there might be times when you need to change the modified date of a file. For example, maybe you want the Date Modified attribute to be the same as the Created attribute for file sorting and management reasons.

The good thing, it is pretty easy to change the “Date Modified” attribute of any file. All it takes is a few clicks. Let me show you how to do it in simple steps.

How to Change the Modified Date of a File

We will use a free and portable software called BulkFileChanger from Nirsoft. It lets you change the Modified Data of any file with just a few clicks. Let me show you how.

  1. Get BulkFileChanger from Nirsoft.
  2. Extract the ZIP file to a folder.
  3. Open the EXE file.
  4. Click the “Open File” icon.
  5. Select the file and click “Open.”
  6. Select the file in the application.
  7. Click the “Change time/attributes” icon.
  8. Uncheck the “Time is specified in GMT” checkbox.
  9. Select the checkboxes next to the date and time in the Modified field.
  10. Set the date and time as needed.
  11. Press the “Do it” button.
  12. With that, you’ve changed the Modified Date of a file.

Download BulkFileChanger: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/bulk_file_changer.html

Steps with more details:

First, head over to the Nirsoft website and download the BulkFileChanger software. It will be in ZIP file format. After downloading, extract the ZIP file to a new folder.

Open the extracted folder and double-click on the EXE file. This action will open the Bulk File Changer application.

After opening it, click the “Open Files” icon on the top bar, select the file, and click the “Open” button. You can also drag and drop the file into the application.

click open files

Once the file is added, click the “Change time/attributes” icon on the top bar.

click change date and time attribute option

Next, uncheck the “Time is specified in GMT” checkbox. If you don’t uncheck this option, the application will offset whatever time you set using the application according to the GMT.

uncheck gmt option

Select the checkboxes next to the date and time fields next to the “Modified” heading. After that, change the time and date as required.

change modified date of a file

If you want to set the current time as the modified time, click the “Fill Current Time” button.

Once done, click the “Do it” button. This action applies the changed modified date to the file.

You can close the application.

modified date changed

If you open File Explorer, it will show the changed modified date and time in the file properties.

changed modified date of a file in file explorer

That is all. It is that simple to change the modified date and time of any file in Windows.

I hope this simple and easy Windows how-to guide helped you.

If you are stuck or need help, send an email, and I will try to help as much as possible.

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