Get File Created Time in Python

Python – Get File Created Time

To get file created timestamp in Python, you can use the os.path module. Call os.path.getctime() function and pass the file path as argument to the function.

The function returns a number giving the number of seconds since the epoch. You may use datetime library to format it to a specific datetime format.

The syntax to call os.path.getctime() function to get the time when the file was created is

import os

os.path.getctime(file_path)

Note: The function returns the system’s ctime (created time) which, on some systems (like Unix) is the time of the last metadata change, and, on others (like Windows), is the creation time.

Example

In the following program, we will get the created time of the file data.txt programmatically using os.path.getctime() function.

File

import os
import datetime

file_path = 'myfolder/data.txt'

# Get created time
n = os.path.getctime(file_path)

# Convert epoch to a timestamp
timestamp = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(n).strftime('%c')
print(timestamp)

Output

Mon Jan 16 12:41:44 2023

Summary

In this tutorial of Python Examples, we learned how to get the created time of a file using os.path.getctime() function, with the help of examples.