Get File Modified Time in Python

Python - Get File Modified Time

To get file modified timestamp in Python, you can use the os.path module. Call os.path.getmtime() 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.getmtime() function to get the time when the file was modified is

import os

os.path.getmtime(file_path)

Example

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

File

Python Program

import os
import datetime

file_path = 'myfolder/data.txt'

#get modified time
n = os.path.getmtime(file_path)

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

Output

Mon Jan 16 22:17:35 2023

Summary

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