Just to clarify things a bit more, I'll quote from the stat(2) man page [1]: time_t st_atime; /* time of last access */ time_t st_mtime; /* t

Just to clarify things a bit more, I'll quote from the stat(2) man page [1]: time_t st_atime; /* time of last access */ time_t st_mtime; /* time of last modification */ time_t st_ctime; /* time of last status change */ The field st_atime is changed by file accesses, for example, by execve(2), mknod(2), pipe(2), utime(2) and read(2) (of more than zero bytes). Other routines, like mmap(2), may or may not update st_atime. The field st_mtime is changed by file modifications, for example, by mknod(2), truncate(2), utime(2) and write(2) (of more than zero bytes). Moreover, st_mtime of a directory is changed by the creation or deletion of files in that directory. The st_mtime field is not changed for changes in owner, group, hard link count, or mode. The field st_ctime is changed by writing or by setting inode information (i.e., owner, group, link count, mode, etc.). [1]: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/stat.2.html http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/stat.2.html