A more accurate Windows command prompt DIR modified time A more accurate Windows command prompt DIR modified time windows windows

A more accurate Windows command prompt DIR modified time


The robocopy answer does work, but another nice option that works from the standard Windows console (not DOS per se):

forfiles /c "cmd /c echo @file @ftime"


There is no native Windows command line utility that supports viewing time stamps with a resolution of milliseconds.

Your best option would to either use a 3rd party tool or for a native solution (Vista+), use robocopy (supports seconds):

robocopy /L /TS . ..

Tracking a resolution finer than seconds might be trivial or useless as well depending on the file system being used. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724290(v=vs.85).aspx and http://jpsoft.com/help/index.htm?timestamps.htm

FAT has a write time resolution of 2 seconds.


Another user wrote "There is no native Windows command line utility that supports viewing time stamps with a resolution of milliseconds." That is incorrect. Run either of the two wmic commands on a file in an NTFS filesystem and you will see the timestamp to the accuracy of millionths of a second (microsecond which is shorter/smaller than millisecond):

For file type = file:

G:\>wmic datafile where Name="G:\\c\\m\\d\\file.jpg" list /format:listAccessMask=2032127Archive=TRUECaption=g:\c\m\d\file.jpgCompressed=FALSECompressionMethod=CreationClassName=CIM_LogicalFileCreationDate=20141109222121.770365-420CSCreationClassName=Win32_ComputerSystemCSName=LENOVODescription=g:\c\m\d\file.jpgDrive=g:EightDotThreeFileName=g:\c\m\d\file.jpgEncrypted=FALSEEncryptionMethod=Extension=jpgFileName=fileFileSize=737719FileType=JPEG ImageFSCreationClassName=Win32_FileSystemFSName=NTFSHidden=FALSEInstallDate=20141109222121.770365-420InUseCount=LastAccessed=20200909172756.711862-360LastModified=20140817192345.000000-360Manufacturer=Name=g:\c\m\d\file.jpgPath=\c\m\d\Readable=TRUEStatus=OKSystem=FALSEVersion=Writeable=TRUE

For file type = file folder / directory:

E:\>wmic FSDIR where Name="D:\\a\\b\\c\\folder" list /format:listAccessMask=2032127Archive=TRUECompressed=FALSECompressionMethod=CSName=RPM-HP14-BW012NDescription=d:\a\b\c\folderDrive=d:EightDotThreeFileName=d:\a\b\c\folderEncrypted=FALSEEncryptionMethod=Extension=FileName=folderFileSize=FileType=File FolderFSName=NTFSHidden=FALSEInstallDate=20141109221702.051899-420InUseCount=LastAccessed=20200921013720.883985-420LastModified=20200919161912.763540-420Name=d:\a\b\c\folderPath=\a\b\c\Readable=TRUEStatus=OKSystem=FALSEWriteable=TRUE

20141109222121.770365-420 = 2014-11-09 22 hours 21 minutes 21 seconds 770365 microseconds 420 minutes different from UTC time.

10 millionths of seconds:See https://superuser.com/questions/937380/get-creation-time-of-file-in-milliseconds which has text generated by a different method - "[File] Birth [time]: 2015-03-29 22:16:50.080654200 +0100". "080654200" shows the amount of nanoseconds (080,654,200) or the amount of tenths of microseconds (0,806,542).

Wikipedia says: NTFS Date resolution = 100 ns - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS