Change Relative Time to Absolute Time for Timestamps in File Manager

Daniel

10/13/23, 5:16 AM

I have looked high and low for an answer to this question and have had a problem with this for a very long time. The work I do is extremely date-intensive and to get "yesterday" or "4 days ago" etc is an added step that I must figure out before going forward. I realize most people prefer relative time but I need absolute time for the work that I do.

Example: I have downloaded an image, one of many many, after midnight the timestamp reads "yesterday." It goes from there until a point when this goes away and it begins to display the date instead. When the file has been on the computer over 3 days, I get "3 days ago." If it was done sometime close to midnight, this gets confusing as to which date it was actually created.

This appears to be Ubuntu's default format. This format is very widespread not only in Linux but other operating systems and online. How do I get (in this case) File Manager to display Created, Modified, etc in date format or Absolute Time, NOT Relative Time? Are there any commands I can use in Terminal to permanently change this?

This would help me to not having to keep stopping my work to do the extra step of trying to figure what the actual date/time was when something was created or modified.

Thanks!

1 + 4

filemanager

vanadium

10/13/23, 10:20 AM

I agree. This "human friendly" way of referring to dates may, in some workflows, seriously hamper productivity.

mook765

10/13/23, 11:27 AM

Try other file managers if Nautilus does not let you configure this. Dolphin (which is default file manager for Kubuntu) offers an option to swich to absolute date.

Daniel

10/14/23, 7:05 PM

To me, (not to put anybody down who supports it) that "human friendly" way is one of the worst cases of "dumbing" something down as if date formats were just too complicated.

Daniel

10/14/23, 7:23 PM

I am finding examples of Dolphin being installed alongside of Nautilus and then being made the default file manager. Nice!! I would also be able to reverse this should I ever need to.

Score:0

Ubuntu

vanadium

10/13/23, 10:29 AM

Frustratingly, issues like this may tend to be left unsolved, as illustrated by this discussion on the Gnome issue tracker.

Another issue, where also this issue could be addressed, is still open.

+ 0

Elon Musk

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EN: Change Relative Time to Absolute Time for Timestamps in File Manager

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