TOUCH(1) General Commands Manual TOUCH(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

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

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**touch** \[OPTION]... \[FILE]...

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

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

# [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS)

[**--help**](#help)

Print help information.

[**-a**](#a)

change only the access time

[**-t** *<STAMP>*](#t)

use \[\[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm\[.ss] instead of the current time

[**-d**, **--date** *<STRING>*](#d)

parse argument and use it instead of current time

[**-f**](#f)

(ignored)

[**-m**](#m)

change only the modification time

[**-c**, **--no-create**](#c)

do not create any files

[**-h**, **--no-dereference**](#h)

affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file (only for systems that can change the timestamps of a symlink)

[**-r**, **--reference** *<FILE>*](#r)

use this file's times instead of the current time

[**--time** *<WORD>*](#time)

change only the specified time: "access", "atime", or "use" are equivalent to -a; "modify" or "mtime" are equivalent to -m

*Possible values:*

- atime
- mtime

[**-V**, **--version**](#V)

Print version

\[*files*]

# [VERSION](#VERSION)

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

2026-09-30

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Document: touch(1) from uutils 0.12.0-r1 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/uutils/coreutils