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3 Steps to Make Filezilla Preserve Timestamp

Filezilla Preserve Timestamp

By default, all downloaded files are new to client machines, so their modified date are the date they downloaded. It'll become a little annoying when comparing files between both sides, because we have no confidence to tell the newest version from one to another time after time.

The best solution that we can hope is to keep the original file modified date to make the file synchronization work smoothly. Luckily, the steps are extremely simple.

Here are the steps to make Filezilla preserve timestamp.

Turn on Preserve timestamps of transferred files.

Please click the function menu of FileZilla: TransferPreserve timestamps of transferred files to enable it.

Preserve timestamps of transferred files Disabled - FileZilla
Preserve timestamps of transferred files Disabled - FileZilla

FileZilla reminds you that your server must support MFMT command.

Just click OK to proceed.

FTP servers must support MFMT command - FileZilla
FTP servers must support MFMT command - FileZilla

Make sure the option is enabled before transferring files.

You can see there's a ✓ (checked) leading the option.

Preserve timestamps of transferred files Enabled - FileZilla
Preserve timestamps of transferred files Enabled - FileZilla

Another way to keep file timestamp is to zip the bunch of files on the server before downloading, you may refer to my post below for more information: How to Retrieve a Directory Recursively by FTP Alternatively

8 thoughts on “3 Steps to Make Filezilla Preserve Timestamp”

  1. Does it preserve a Directory Timestamp than just Files? (WinSCP does, But they are milking for money on Windows Store. So they are sucks for their pricing and I don’t like it)

    1. This is because the underlying sftp does not preserve timestamp by default, it needs an additional option -p to preserve file attributes.

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