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Are file timestamps (Created/birth, accessed and modified) the same on different OSes? Particularly on Windows and Linux.

I downloaded a file which is modified on Windows and its timestamps looked right on my Linux system with ext4.

  • Let's say I modified a file on a NTFS filesystem mounted on Linux.

  • Or I copied it to my ext4 partition, modified it (or accessed it) and put it back (for modified and/or accessed).

  • Or I created a file on ext4 and put it to a NTFS partition (for birth).

Will they look right on Windows?

I use Windows and Linux together and I want to keep timestamps same.

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  • ext4 does not store creation time. Commented Aug 26, 2022 at 1:29
  • ctime is traditionally the last change time, not creation time. various filesystems may or may not have extensions to also store the birth time Commented Aug 26, 2022 at 1:36
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    @jordanm it does, but it has been made accessible only fairly recently. Commented Aug 26, 2022 at 1:59
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    ext4 does store creation time and has always done. Commented Aug 26, 2022 at 5:23
  • MTP rsync --help, might help, might not. Commented Aug 31, 2022 at 18:22

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Linux utilities, aside from star, cannot copy the birth/creation time but star does that only for files extracted/restored from .tar archives, so basically we have none.

Please refer to this question for more info: Copying or restoring crtime for files/directories on ext4fs filesystem

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