It’s often useful to know when a file was created or modified, but as it’s copied, moved, processed, maybe imported from one PC to another, there’s a chance this vital information may be lost.

Even worse, Windows has no standard way to fix this situation. You can view your file dates and times, but there’s no easy way to modify them.

NirSoft’s BulkFileChanger offers one possible solution. Give the program your target files and it’s able to modify their created/ modified/ accessed times, change their file attributes, copy/ cut/ paste into Explorer or run an executable with your files as parameters.

The program accepts files via the regular Windows Open dialog, by searching a folder tree for particular masks (pic*.jpg), or by dragging and dropping files from Explorer. Each of these operations may be repeated as many times as required to build up the complete list.

Fix your file dates, times, attributes and more from one dialog

There are several ways to change your file created, modified and accessed dates and times. You’re able to set some or all of these manually, batch update them by adding or subtracting a value (x seconds/ minutes/ hours/ days/ months/ years), or copy any one of these dates (created, modified, accessed) to any or all of the others.

An unusual Date Sequence mode allows creating a different date and time for each file. For example, you could sort the list into alphabetical order, set a specific date and time for the first file, and an increment which applies to all the others (every subsequent date is set to be x seconds/ minutes/ hours/ days/ months/ years later).

A bonus Attributes option enables toggling file archive, read-only, temporary, hidden and system attributes, as well as specifically setting them on or off.

BulkFileChanger is a great program, but it does assume you know what your correct file dates and times should be, and most of the time that won’t be true.

File Date Corrector is a $20 (lifetime license) commercial tool which also accepts multiple files, but then scans their tags to figure out what the original created and modified dates might be.

These are the supported formats. (Keep in mind that these won’t necessarily contain the tags File Date Corrector needs– it all depends on the software used to create and process them later.)

Document files:
pdf, doc, docx, docm, xls, xlsx, xlsm, ppt, pptx, odt, ods, odp, odg, odc, odf, odi, odm

Image files:
jpg, jpeg, jpeg2000, jp2, j2k, j2c, jng, jif, jpe, tif, tiff, dng, nef, cr2, crw, nrw, raw

Audio files:
ogg, ogm, mp2, mp3, wma, ra, ape, mac, flac, ac3, aac, dts, m4a, m4b

Video files:
avi, mpeg, mpg, vob, mp4, mpgv, mpv, m1v, m2v, m4v, asf, wmv, qt, mov, rm, rmvb, ifo, wtv, dvr-ms, mkv, mka, mks, divx, xvid, m2ts, m2t, mts, ts, flv, 3gp

To get started, simply point the program at the folder containing your faulty files. It scans the folder tree for any supported files, displays their original create and modified dates, and whatever original dates it’s uncovered.

The demo version only allows viewing the detected dates, unfortunately, but if it works for you then spending $20 on a lifetime license will enable fixing as many files as you like.

File Date Corrector’s limited demo version is available for Windows XP and later.