TOUCH

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: February 2026
Index Return to Main Contents

---

 

NAME

touch - create file, or change file timestamps  

SYNOPSIS

touch [,OPTION/]... ,FILE/...  

DESCRIPTION

Update the access and modification times of each FILE to the current time.

A FILE argument that does not exist is created empty, unless -c or -h is supplied.

A FILE argument string of - is handled specially and causes touch to change the times of the file associated with standard output.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#touc-a'-aX'tty: link'

change only the access time

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#touc-c'-c, --no-createX'tty: link'

do not create any files

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#touc-d'-d, --date=,STRINGX'tty: link'/

parse STRING and use it instead of current time

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#touc-f'-fX'tty: link'

(ignored)

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#touc-h'-h, --no-dereferenceX'tty: link'

affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file; useful only on systems that can change the timestamps of a symlink

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#touc-m'-mX'tty: link'

change only the modification time

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#touc-r'-r, --reference=,FILEX'tty: link'/

use this file's times instead of current time

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#touc-t'-t [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss]X'tty: link'

use specified time instead of current time, with a date-time format that differs from -d's

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#touc-time'--time=WORDX'tty: link'

specify which time to change: access time (-a): 'access', 'atime', 'use'; modification time (-m): 'modify', 'mtime'

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/touch#touc-help'--helpX'tty: link'

display this help and exit

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/touch#touc-version'--versionX'tty: link'

output version information and exit

 

DATE STRING

The-date=STRING is a mostly free format human readable date string such as "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42-0800" or "200-0-29 16:21:42" or even "next Thursday". A date string may contain items indicating calendar date, time of day, time zone, day of week, relative time, relative date, and numbers. An empty string indicates the beginning of the day. The date string format is more complex than is easily documented here but is fully described in the info documentation.  

AUTHOR

Written by Paul Rubin, Arnold Robbins, Jim Kingdon, David MacKenzie, and Randy Smith.  

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org

Report Gentoo bugs to: https://bugs.gentoo.org/
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>  

SEE ALSO

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/touch>
or available locally via: info aq(coreutils) touch invocationaq

Packaged by Gentoo (9.10 (p0))
Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

---

 

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

DATE STRING

AUTHOR

REPORTING BUGS

SEE ALSO