Date Modified Changes Upon opening file

Question

In Onedrive for business on the sync client when opening a file simply to view or to print (without making changes or saving the file) the date modified changes to the current date. It does not retain the original "date modified" date.  This is troublesome as many of the documents I maintain rely on the last date modified to indicate when I should retire them.  This issue occurs in these scenarios:

1. Open the file in Work or Excel online or in the client application (ProPlus/Office 2016)
2. Opening the file for printing without saving (ProPlus/Office 2016).

If viewing the file online without opening the file, the date modified does not change.  However, if you simply want to view a file from your sync folder, the file will open and change the date modified.

Please fix this issue! It is causing us a lot of problems with document management and compliance.

Thank you.

Moved from: OneDrive / Working with files and folders on OneDrive / Editing and viewing files and folders / OneDrive in Windows 10

Answer 1

Hi All,

Greg has not followed up so we could not troubleshoot the issue further. We suggest creating a new thread with a detailed description of the issue, as some details that other users has provided are different, so we would like to do this separately. For example, Greg mentions that this issue happens to all file types while another user mentions it only affects files that are opened in compability mode.

We are also unable to reproduce the issue, so providing your environment details would help. Please post a separate thread that includes these information.

To let other members easily see this information, we will lock this thread from further posting.

Regards,

Sheen

Answer 2

I didn't see an answer here and I figured out what worked for me, so here is what I did.

Open Word

Select File

Select Options

Select Save

Untick Auto Save One Drive

(I changed my auto recover from 10 minutes to 5 as well)

then

Right click on One Drive symbol on task bar and select Settings

Select Office Tab

Untick use Office 2016 to sync files that I open.

Please reply to this thread if this works for you too.

Answer 3

Thanks Biospawn, this worked!  I only had to do the second part (untick use Office 2016 to sync files in OneDrive settings).  This was quite distressing, as file modification dates are critical in a business environment.  I can only imagine the mess this has created for organizations whose users have been opening and closing files without changing them, and haven't yet realized that they've lost a potentially critical piece of information on a large number of documents: the file modified date.  Microsoft should have turned the setting off by default by design, and certainly should do something about this now before it continues to adversely affect more people and businesses.

Now I need to figure out what to do about the handful of company files I've opened to just view and have now lost the true last modified date!

Answer 4

THANK YOU Biospawn!!

We need to bump up your reply, it is the solution many people are looking for.  I don't know why Microsoft support can't give a clear answer just like yours.

Answer 5

Sheen,

   I have the same issue.  Biospawn's info is a help.  It happens with all the files unless you turn off autosave.  I've done so in excel and in word.  There needs to be a feature / option that's easier to turn off.  As with Greg, I too have to look into various files in SharePoint and every time I do, unless I turn autosave off, SharePoint changes the date modified even if I've done nothing but view it (regardless if viewed in web view or in word / excel).