Drag/drop files in MacOS - does it retain all info/time stamps as original?

[lifereinspired]

Hi,

I'm new to MacOS (kind of the last major OS I've worked with). I used Windows extensively in the past, then switched to Linux for desktop. IOS is my primary daily driver but we finally tried the M1 Mac mini.

I'm curious, I've had issues the last several months on Linux with drag/drop of files/folders not working as expected. The created'modified dates aren't retained from the originals but are created from the time the files are dragged over. This means which checking files across two drives, they flag the files as not being duplicates (since the dates/times are all wrong). I had to go to the command line using rsync to get around this.

Since I'm just learning my way around MacOS (but I realize that it has its roots in a Unix or Linux based system of some type), I'm wondering how the system handles copying files/folders by drag and drop. Will it make an exact copy with all data (including time stamps) being preserved or does the system see the copied files as new and distinct with a different date/time? Any info would be amazing. I appreciate the help so much and am grateful for the chance to learn.

 

[Gregg2]

Just ran a test for you. I copied a recently created file to a newly created folder. Both files retained the same time and date.

 

[Brian33]

I've used OS X and macOS since 2008 and this kind of question keeps bubbling up in my mind. There are so many ways to copy files (drag-and-drop, commands like 'cp' and 'rsync' with their various options, applications like Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner), and SO many file characteristics (attributes like time-of-creation and time-of-last-access and time-of-modification, POSIX permissions, file flags like uchg and hidden, Extended Attributes, Finder Tags (actually implemented as Extended Attributes, IIRC), Access Control Lists (ACLs)...) that I find it rather difficult to know if I have an "exact copy" of any given file!

However, I cannot remember ever using drag-and-drop in macOS and NOT having my expectations met. I recommend drag-and-drop when it's feasible and convenient. It's not so good when you're copying thousands of files and the copy might get interrupted -- that's a good job for rsync (with the appropriate options if there are extended attributes and ACLs).