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touch — Create files and set access/modification times. More information: <https://www.gnu.org/software/core

Submitted by: @import:tldr-pages·Mar 2, 2026·

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createcommandfilesandaccessclitouchset

Problem

How to use the touch command: Create files and set access/modification times. More information: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/touch-invocation.html>.

Solution

touch — Create files and set access/modification times. More information: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/touch-invocation.html>.

Create specific files:

touch {{path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...}}

Set the file [a]ccess or [m]odification times to the current one and don't create file if it doesn't exist:

touch {{[-c|--no-create]}} {{-a|-m}} {{path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...}}

Set the file [t]ime to a specific value and don't create file if it doesn't exist:

touch {{[-c|--no-create]}} -t {{YYYYMMDDHHMM.SS}} {{path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...}}

Set the files' timestamp to the reference file's timestamp, and do not create the file if it does not exist:

touch {{[-c|--no-create]}} {{[-r|--reference]}} {{path/to/reference_file}} {{path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...}}

Set the timestamp by parsing a string:

touch {{[-d|--date]}} "{{last year|5 hours|next thursday|nov 14|...}}" {{path/to/file}}

Create multiple files with an increasing number:

touch {{path/to/file{1..10}}}

Create multiple files with a letter range:

touch {{path/to/file{a..z}}}

Code Snippets

Create specific files

touch {{path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...}}

Set the file [a]ccess or [m]odification times to the current one and don't create file if it doesn't exist

touch {{[-c|--no-create]}} {{-a|-m}} {{path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...}}

Set the file [t]ime to a specific value and don't create file if it doesn't exist

touch {{[-c|--no-create]}} -t {{YYYYMMDDHHMM.SS}} {{path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...}}

Set the files' timestamp to the reference file's timestamp, and do not create the file if it does not exist

touch {{[-c|--no-create]}} {{[-r|--reference]}} {{path/to/reference_file}} {{path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...}}

Set the timestamp by parsing a string

touch {{[-d|--date]}} "{{last year|5 hours|next thursday|nov 14|...}}" {{path/to/file}}

Context

tldr-pages: common/touch

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