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How can I keep the original 'Created' and 'Modified' date and timestamps of a file when I download it from a website?

When I download a file from a website, the 'Created' and 'Modified' dates are taken at the time of the download. I want to have the original values from the file server on my downloaded file.

In Windows, there is a tool that can do this called the Internet Download Manager (IDM) but is there something that can do the same for Linux and Mac OSX?

I know that it can also depend on the file system that the file server uses in order to interpret date and timestamps for files. For example, a Windows-based file server will probably be using NTFS so it's interpretation of a date and timestamp of it's files might be different to that of a Linux-based server. I don't know if this will have any impact on the end user being able to download the original dates and times, regardless of which file server they are downloading them from.

James
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  • This really all depends on how the file is being downloaded. – l'L'l Feb 27 '15 at 11:03
  • whatever file download methods are the most popular. Manually downloading a file through a link via the browser, using a download client tool, or using something like 'wget' with extra parameters to retain the original dates. – James Feb 27 '15 at 14:49

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wget can retrieve the timestamp where possible - it's completely dependable on the file server and how it sends the file down. For example, I cannot retrieve the timestamp of a file if I download it from the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org). This site does not provide the original file creation date and timestamp.

James
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