touch – change file timestamps or create files

touch updates file timestamps or creates empty files if they don’t exist. It’s commonly used to quickly create new files.

Synopsis

touch [OPTIONS] FILE...

Common Options

Examples

Create an empty file

$ touch newfile.txt
$ ls -l newfile.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 greys staff 0 Jan 29 18:00 newfile.txt

Create multiple files

$ touch file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt
$ touch test{1..5}.log    # Creates test1.log through test5.log

Update timestamp to now

$ touch existing_file.txt    # Updates mtime and atime

Set specific date

$ touch -d "2024-01-15 14:30:00" file.txt
$ touch -d "yesterday" file.txt
$ touch -d "2 days ago" file.txt

Set timestamp using format

$ touch -t 202401151430.00 file.txt    # Jan 15, 2024, 14:30:00

Copy timestamp from another file

$ touch -r reference.txt target.txt

Change only access time

$ touch -a file.txt

Change only modification time

$ touch -m file.txt

Don’t create if missing

$ touch -c nonexistent.txt    # No file created, no error

Common Patterns

Create file with content

$ echo "initial content" > newfile.txt    # Better than touch for this

Create directory structure with files

$ mkdir -p project/src && touch project/src/main.py

Trigger file-based builds

$ touch src/main.c    # Make will see file as modified

Create placeholder files

$ touch .gitkeep    # Keep empty directory in git

Reset timestamps for testing

$ touch -d "2020-01-01" old_file.txt
$ find . -newer old_file.txt    # Find files modified after

Tips

• Creating files: touch is the simplest way to create empty files
• Build systems: Touch source files to force recompilation
• Testing: Set old timestamps to test backup/cleanup scripts
• Permissions: touch preserves existing permissions
• Existence check: Use touch -c if you only want to update existing files

See Also

Related Commands

• stat — Display file timestamps
• ls — List files with timestamps (ls -l)
• date — Display or set system date
• mkdir — Create directories

Tutorials

• Basic Unix Commands