How to get the file last modified date in Java

In this article 👇

In an earlier article, we learned how to change the file's last modified date in Java.

In this article, we shall look at different ways to get the last modified date of a file using Java.

In Java 7 or higher, you can use the Files.getLastModifiedTime() method to get the last modified date of a file, as shown below:

try {
    Path path = Paths.get("input.txt");

    // print last modified date
    System.out.println("Last Modified Date: " + Files.getLastModifiedTime(path));

} catch (IOException ex){
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

Here is the output of the above code:

Last Modified Date: 2022-10-01T18:20:11Z

In older Java versions (Java 6 or below), File.lastModified() can be used to get the file's last modified date, as shown below:

File file = new File("input.txt");

SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss");

// print last modified date
System.out.println("Last Modified Date: " + sdf.format(file.lastModified()));

Further Reading

You may be interested in other Java I/O articles:

✌️ Like this article? Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also subscribe to RSS Feed.

You might also like...

Digital Ocean

The simplest cloud platform for developers & teams. Start with a $200 free credit.

Buy me a coffee ☕

If you enjoy reading my articles and want to help me out paying bills, please consider buying me a coffee ($5) or two ($10). I will be highly grateful to you ✌️

Enter the number of coffees below:

✨ Learn to build modern web applications using JavaScript and Spring Boot

I started this blog as a place to share everything I have learned in the last decade. I write about modern JavaScript, Node.js, Spring Boot, core Java, RESTful APIs, and all things web development.

The newsletter is sent every week and includes early access to clear, concise, and easy-to-follow tutorials, and other stuff I think you'd enjoy! No spam ever, unsubscribe at any time.