Timestamps and time zones

Each file carries a modification time. Keeping it intact matters for your own sense of what changed, and even more for synchronization, which compares those times to decide what to transfer.

Keep the original time

Tick Preserve timestamp in the transfer settings (it is on by default). The copy then gets the source’s modification time instead of the time of the transfer. Tick Including directories to do the same for directories.

Whether this works for uploads depends on the server:

• SFTP and SCP can always set the time.
• FTP can set it only if the server supports the MFMT command. Many do; some older ones do not.
• WebDAV servers mostly cannot, and S3 keeps its own upload time.

Downloads always keep the time when the option is on, since linscp sets it on your own disk.

When times are off

What you see	Likely cause	What to change
Every remote file is off by the same whole number of hours.	The server reports times in its own zone, not UTC. Affects FTP and SCP.	Time zone offset in the site’s settings.
Only some files are off by one hour, depending on the date.	Daylight saving time is applied differently on the two sides.	The Daylight saving time choice in the site’s settings.
Times show only to the minute, or with no time at all for old files.	The server’s listing lacks precision. Common with FTP and SCP.	See Precision below.
Uploaded files have the upload time.	The server cannot set times, or Preserve timestamp is off.	Check the option; on FTP, ask for MFMT support.

The site settings are on the Environment page of the advanced site settings:

• Time zone offset – hours and minutes to add to the server’s times. For FTP, Detect automatically lets linscp work out the offset by itself.
• Daylight saving time (SFTP and SCP) – Adjust remote timestamp to local conventions converts as your operating system would for each date. Adjust remote timestamp with DST applies today’s offset to every date. Try it when only files from the other half of the year are off.

Precision

The remote panel shows times only as precisely as the server reports them. If it shows minutes, two changes within the same minute look identical, and a later synchronization may miss one of them.

To get better times:

• Prefer SFTP, which reports times to the second.
• For SCP, tick Try to get full timestamp on the site’s SCP/Shell page, so linscp asks ls for full times.
• For FTP, use a server that supports MLSD; linscp uses it when offered.

During a session, linscp remembers the exact times of files it uploaded and uses them in comparisons, which hides some of the imprecision.

Fix times without transferring

If the files are already identical and only the times differ, run Commands › Synchronize… in Synchronize timestamps mode. It updates the times without copying any data.