Copy (subset) of files preserving all date info

KingL

I have a folder with lots of child folders and files in.

I want to copy a specific subset of the files (and folder hierarchies) from one drive to another while RETAINING their File Created Date and File Modified Dates (for the dates of folders and files)

I painstakingly made a list of the path statements of the required (subset of) files, then used a spreadsheet to make the xcopy statements:
xcopy "f:\Sou rce3\File6.jpg" "g:\Tar get3\"
xcopy "f:\Sou rce7\File17.jpg" "g:\Ta rget7\"

But I find that running this in an (admin) CLI window preserves the Modified Date of the files, but not their Created Dates (nor any of the dates of their containing Folders).

.

I found some stuff about Robocopy preserving dates metadata. If I Robocopy the files onto a blank drive, the Created and Modified dates of the files are preserved, but not those of the folders (the folder's Created Date is today).

As a workaround, I tried first robocopying a set of empty folders

(syntax: ROBOCOPY source target /e /xf /copyall /dcopy:T * )

The result is that all the folder dates are preserved, however when I subsequently Robocopy the files over into those empty folders, the folders' Modified Dates get changed to today's date.

so I'm stuck.

How can I copy a designated list of files (NOT the entire folder), while preserving ALL the dates, please.

background:
The drives are external drives. Win 10 home. There are actually tens of thousands of files in hundreds of nested folders. I am wanting to copy about 80% of them, which are defined in my list/spreadsheet. So I need something that doesn't need a lot of manual intervention (other than tweaking my spreadsheet to write different command statements).

thanks

.

that

robocopy will keep the dates intact. do not use /mir as most people loose stuff. never done single files with it

dos prompt type robocopy /?

think freefilesync may also and the gui is more friendly

John_Gray

The only file timestamp which has any real chance of accuracy is the file-modified timestamp.

Because of inconsistent programming by Microsoft programmers over the decades, the file-created and file-last-accessed timestamps tend to be inconsistent.

toshi

Try Teracopy
https://www.codesector.com/teracopy

or Synctoy ?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155