TOUCH(1)

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.

-a  change only the access time

-c, --no-create
    do not create any files

-d, --date=STRING
    parse STRING and use it instead of current time

-f  (ignored)

-h, --no-dereference
    affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file; useful only on systems that can change the timestamps of a symlink

-m  change only the modification time

-r, --reference=FILE
    use this file's times instead of current time

-t [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss]
    use specified time instead of current time, with a date-time format that differs from -d's

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

--help
    display this help and exit

--version
    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 "2004-02-29 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
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/>

COPYRIGHT
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.

SEE ALSO
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/touch>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) touch invocation'