How to keep original "date created" when copying via Terminal? There are many questions online asking how to make the commands rsync and cp go about copying a file while keeping the "date created" attribute the same as the original instead of the time of copy. I understand this is Mac's added information and is separate from the file's metadata "date created" attribute. Anyways, as I played around with rsync -a, it did everything I wanted except, as everyone online notes, it changed the "date created" to the time of copy instead of original make. With rsync and cp it changes due to "a change to the inode". Command-c command-v, however, keeps the "date created" time the same.

Here's my question: How is it that Cmd-C Cmd-V keeps the date created attribute the same on the copy, yet no command in the terminal will yield this result? If Cmd-C Cmd-V can do it, it seems there has to be some command in the Terminal that replicates this?
There are many reasons why one would rather use RSync instead of cp. RSync's default version on MacOS is 2.6.9, which is more than 12 years old as of today, and has several known bugs, and this is one of them. Apple won't include the updated versions on the new releases of the Mac OSX because of GPL3-related stuff.

To address this issue:


Install homebrew in your Mac, if you don't have it already


  /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Install the new version of rsync available on brew:


  brew install rsync

Certify that your rsync version is at least 3.1.3:


  fabiosl@macpro ~ $ rsync --version

Copy your files using the --times and --crtimes


  rsync -times --crtimes /sourcedirectory /destinationdirectory