I have two macs (iMac and MBP) and use rsync to synchronise the library between these two computers and my server. I have been adjusting the create date for a number of items on the iMac and synced the library to the server (after quitting EF). When I restart EF again, the create date is correct. Now I use rsync to copy the library to my MBP and the create date is not changed.
The server is running FreeBSD 9.2 with rsync 3.1.0, on the OSX systems I’m running rsync 3.1.0 from Homebrew. Am I missing something to get the proper create date? I’ve checked the actual files on my iMac and they also have an incorrect create date (using “ls -l”) but the extended properties (Cmd-I) show the correct creation date. Adding “-X --times” to the rsync commands doesn’t make a difference.
What you’re missing is that the Unix layer (“ls”) and FreeBSD don’t understand the notion of Mac creation dates. (The Unix “ctime” has a different meaning.) If you’re rsyncing between two Macs, you can probably preserve them using the “–extended-attributes” option. I’m not sure whether the FreeBSD version of rsync supports that.
Both the Homebrew and FreeBSD version support extended attributes option (-X or --xattrs) but this doesn’t seem to work. I will try again tonight after I have moved the old backup aside and start fresh.