How to Get File Modified Date Using PowerShell

To get a file modified date using PowerShell, you can use the Get-Item or Get-ChildItem cmdlets to retrieve file information and then access the LastWriteTime property.

The following methods show how you can do it.

Method 1: Get the file modified date using the Get-Item cmdlet

# Specify the file path

$filePath = "C:\temp\log\system_log.txt"

# Retrieve file information and get file modified date

$fileModifiedDate = (Get-Item -Path $filePath).LastWriteTime

Write-Output $fileModifiedDate

This example returns the file modified date using the Get-Item cmdlet.

Method 2: Get the file modified date using the Get-ChildItem cmdlet

# Specify the file path

$filePath = "C:\temp\log\system_log.txt"

# Retrieve file information and get file modified date

$fileModifiedDate = (Get-ChildItem -Path $filePath -File).LastWriteTime

Write-Output $fileModifiedDate

This example will get the file modified date using the Get-ChildItem cmdlet in PowerShell.

The following examples show how to use these methods.

Get File Modified Date in PowerShell Using Get-Item

To get the file modified date, use the Get-Item cmdlet to retrieve file information and then access the LastWriteTime property. The LastWriteTime property returns the last modified date of the file.

# Specify the file path

$filePath = "C:\temp\log\system_log.txt"

# Retrieve file information and get file modified date

$fileModifiedDate = (Get-Item -Path $filePath).LastWriteTime

Write-Output $fileModifiedDate

Output:

This example uses the Get-Item command to retrieve the file information specified by the $filePath variable and access the LastWriteTime property to get the file’s modified date.

Finally, the Write-Output command prints the last modified date of the file.

Get File Modified Date Using the Get-ChildItem in PowerShell

Another way to get a file modified date is by using the Get-ChildItem cmdlet and accessing the LastWriteTime property.

# Specify the file path

$filePath = "C:\temp\log\system_log.txt"

# Retrieve file information and get file modified date

$fileModifiedDate = (Get-ChildItem -Path $filePath -File).LastWriteTime

Write-Output $fileModifiedDate

Output:

In this PowerShell script, the Get-ChildItem command retrieves the file information for the $filePath and accesses the LastWriteTime property of the file.

Finally, the Write-Output command outputs the last modified date of the file.

Conclusion

I hope the above article on getting the last modified date of the file using PowerShell is helpful to you.

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