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In Android, it is simple to view the modified date and for any file or folder. Just about any decent file manager (such as Solid Explorer) includes this functionality.

But how do you view the creation date and time (aka timestamp) for a file or folder in Android?

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2 Answers 2

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Unfortunately, this is not possible when using Android's emulated filesystem. Android's emulated filesystem does not store the creation date of files or folders, so there is no way to retrieve this data, as it does not exist.

(Many thanks to Irfan Latif for confirming this, and to Izzy for clarifications.)

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    “not possible in Android” is not precisely true. It's the limitation of filesystems and the available tools to dump info from filesystem. ext4, for instance, can have inodes larger enough to store crtime which can be dumped using debugfs tool (requires root access) as demonstrated in my answer linked in the comment. Also if you have kernel 4.11+, some tool (like this) can be used to retrieve the same info (doesn't require root). The same can be true for other filesystems
    – Irfan Latif
    Jul 29, 2020 at 7:52
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    Note that Irfan's initial comment didn't say "Android doesn't support", but "Android's emulated filesystem doesn't support this field". He was pointing to what's called "external storage", ie. the sdcard file systems (for the external SD card as well as for the internal one, the latter using an emulated FAT via FUSE).
    – Izzy ♦
    Jul 29, 2020 at 8:13
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    @IrfanLatif and Izzy Thank you both for the clarifications. My brain is a bit overwhelmed with life stuff right now, so please bear with me. I have a few detailed questions about what you both wrote, but I need to do more research and also have a clearer mind before I can ask the right questions. In the meantime, I'll update the answer to be more accurate.
    – End Anti-Semitic Hate
    Jul 29, 2020 at 9:36
  • @Izzy and IrfanLatif I hope you choose not to delete your comments, as I think they are both very valuable and helpful.
    – End Anti-Semitic Hate
    Jul 29, 2020 at 9:39
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    I'd say we leave them be until you've integrated them with your answer and someone marked them obsolete ;)
    – Izzy ♦
    Jul 29, 2020 at 18:25
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Use command stat. The Access time would be the creation date time if the partition is mounted with option noatime, which is the factory default for all 3 of my android phones. That is to say, practically, you can check file/folder creation time.

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