Extracting an Exported notes.zip loses the Date Modified information

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  plattj · Member · March 5, 2025 at 8:56 pm

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  Files within the zipped folder retain their original “last modifed” dates. However unzipping them or copying to the drive overwrites them all with today’s date. Searching by Last Modified date is important for history – not every filename contains a date.
  WIndows 11

  Longtime Simplenote user that needs some assitance

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  johnswift37 · Member · March 5, 2025 at 11:02 pm

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  Hi. This is a problem with your unzip utility. When I unzip my Simplenote export using File Explorer on iOS, each extracted file still has its last modified date. You might try looking for options on the Windows unzip, or try a 3rd-party unzip.

  Alternatively, if you’re desperate, the notes.json file in the unzipped Source folder includes all the text, with the creation and modified dates. Pretty hard to read tho’.

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  plattj · Member · March 6, 2025 at 12:51 am

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  I used WinRAR to examine the archive.

  There was no entry for Created Time or Last Accessed Time. Since it is blank the current date and time are entered by default.

  It would be nice if Simplenote allowed me to Export by text without the zipping.

  I am trying to move to Apple Notes and want to have the original data.

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  johnswift37 · Member · March 6, 2025 at 2:03 am

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  Could you try unzipping it using the Windows built-in method? When I unzip it in iOS, each txt file has the last updated date.

  However, I’d be afraid that Apple Notes may assign each note the date the note was created in Notes, ignoring the dates of the imported text files.

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  plattj · Member · March 9, 2025 at 3:04 pm

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  I am on a Windows 11 PC. Maybe that makes the difference. The Three date fields don’t export correctly. I can’t speak on whether they will import because I am still on step one.
  I wanted to test Apple Notes out as it would be easier to share with vendors than trying to get them to adopt a brand new APP.

  Has anyone moved from Simplenote to Apple Notes on a Windows OS?

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  plattj · Member · March 9, 2025 at 3:23 pm

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  You can see above that the Created and Accessed fields are blank

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  johnswift37 · Member · March 9, 2025 at 5:40 pm

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  OK. I tried unzipping a notes.zip on my win 11 machine. It looks like Windows creates the Last Modified date as the time the file was written on the computer. As I said earlier, unzipping it on iOS (using either the system built-in or File Explorer) does retain the last modified date. So, Simplenote does export the date correctly. But you may have difficulty getting Windows to write a file without updating the date.