The modification date of Drive files change when G

Question

I am moving file this way:

var idOriginFolder = 'ABCDEFG12345abcdefg';
var originFolder = DriveApp.getFolderById(idOriginFolder);
var destinationFolder = DriveApp.createFolder('New Folder');
var searchString = '"'+idOriginFolder+'" in parents'
var foundFiles = DriveApp.searchFiles(searchString);
while (foundFiles.hasNext()){
 var file = foundFiles.next();
 destinationFolder.addFile(file);
 originFolder.removeFile(file);
}

The files are moved correctly, but the modification date of every one moved file is changed to script execution date. Do you know any way to avoid this? When I move files throught of the Web Interface of Google Drive this not happen.

Answer 1

In my experience, the modification date of files is not changed by moving using Drive API v3. In your question, when the files were moved using DriveApp, the modification date was changed. I think that DriveApp uses Drive API v2. So I investigated this, because I was interested in this situation.

For Drive API v2

• It was found that when the files were moved using drive.files.update and drive.files.patch, the modification date was changed.

For Drive API v3

• It was found that when the files were moved using drive.files.update, the modification date was NOT changed.

Sample script :

The sample script for using Drive API v3 is as follows.

var idOriginFolder = 'ABCDEFG12345abcdefg';
var destinationFolder = DriveApp.createFolder('New Folder').getId();
var searchString = '"'+idOriginFolder+'" in parents'
var foundFiles = DriveApp.searchFiles(searchString);
var requests = [];
while (foundFiles.hasNext()){
  var file = foundFiles.next();
  requests.push({
    url: "https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/" + file.getId() + "?addParents=" + destinationFolder + "&removeParents=" + idOriginFolder,
    method: "patch",
    headers: {"Authorization": "Bearer " + ScriptApp.getOAuthToken()},
    muteHttpExceptions: true,
  });
}
var res = UrlFetchApp.fetchAll(requests);
Logger.log(res)

Note :

• From these results, it is considered that moving files by Web Interface may be due to Drive API v3.
• This is a simple sample script. So if you want to move a lot of files, I recommend to use the Batching Requests.

Reference :

• Files: update for Drive API v2
• Files: patch for Drive API v2
• Files: update for Drive API v3
• Batching Requests

If this was not useful for you, I'm sorry.