Sometimes, we want to get file creation and modification date and times in Python.

In this article, we’ll look at how to get file creation and modification date and times in Python.

How to get file creation and modification date and times in Python?

To get file creation and modification date and times in Python, we can use the os.path.getctime and os.path.getmtime methods respectively.

For instance, we write:

import os.path, time

file = './bar.txt'
print("last modified: %s" % time.ctime(os.path.getmtime(file)))
print("created: %s" % time.ctime(os.path.getctime(file)))

We call time.ctime with os.path.getmtime to convert the Unix timestamp of the modification date and time of the file to a human readable date and time string.

Likewise, we call time.ctime with os.path.getctime to convert the Unix timestamp of the creation date and time of the file to a human readable date and time string.

Therefore, we should see something like:

last modified: Sun Oct 17 17:45:30 2021
created: Sun Oct 17 17:50:44 2021

printed from the print calls.

Conclusion

To get file creation and modification date and times in Python, we can use the os.path.getctime and os.path.getmtime methods respectively.