iOS: How do you find the creation date of a file?

This code actually returns the good creation date to me:

NSFileManager* fm = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
NSDictionary* attrs = [fm attributesOfItemAtPath:path error:nil];

if (attrs != nil) {
    NSDate *date = (NSDate*)[attrs objectForKey: NSFileCreationDate];
    NSLog(@"Date Created: %@", [date description]);
} 
else {
    NSLog(@"Not found");
}

Are you creating the file inside the App? Maybe that's where the problem is.


There is a special message fileCreationDate for that in NSDictionary. The following works for me:

Objective-C:

NSDate *date = [attrs fileCreationDate];

Swift:

let attrs = try NSFileManager.defaultManager().attributesOfItemAtPath(path) as NSDictionary
attrs.fileCreationDate()

Swift 2.0 version:

do {
    let fileAttributes = try NSFileManager.defaultManager().attributesOfItemAtPath(YOURPATH)
    let creationDate = fileAttributes[NSFileCreationDate] as? NSDate
    let modificationDate = fileAttributes[NSFileModificationDate] as? NSDate
    print("creation date of file is", creationDate)
    print("modification date of file is", modificationDate)
}catch let error as NSError {
    print("file not found:", error)
}

Updated answer for Swift 4 to pull out the modified (.modifiedDate) or creation (.creationDate) date:

let file: URL = ...
if let attributes = try? FileManager.default.attributesOfItem(atPath: file.path) as [FileAttributeKey: Any],
    let creationDate = attributes[FileAttributeKey.creationDate] as? Date {
    print(creationDate)
    }
  1. Using a file that you provide in advance via a URL, it will request its attributes. If successful a dictionary of [FileAttributeKey: Any] is returned
  2. Using the dictionary from step 1, it then pulls out the creation date (or modified if you prefer) and using the conditional unwrap, assigns it to a date if successful
  3. Assuming the first two steps are successful, you now have a date that you can work with