How to change the created date of an Excel file

A workbook creation date is not a cell date

An Excel workbook can contain hundreds of dates in cells and still have just one standard Created property in its document metadata. The Created date in Finder is another value, held by your Mac’s filesystem.

Changing workbook metadata does not change a budget month, an invoice date, a formula result or a date format in a cell. If your task concerns a value inside a worksheet, edit that cell in Excel instead.

Change an Excel creation date with WordDate

1. Finish your spreadsheet edits and close the workbook in Excel.
2. Add the .xlsx, .xlsm or Excel 97–2003 .xls file to WordDate.
3. Compare the Finder and Excel Created values in Current dates.
4. Enable Set dates separately and choose the required Created date and time. Set Modified / Last Saved and Last Printed to the values you want to retain.
5. Review After applying and the optional custom date properties. The created date must be on or before the modified date.
6. Select Save a copy or Update original and choose Apply dates. Re-add the saved workbook to inspect the result.

XLSX, XLSM and older XLS workbooks

WordDate supports modern .xlsx workbooks, .xlsm macro-enabled workbooks and Excel 97–2003 .xls files, up to 256 MB each. The app keeps the original file format; changing a date does not convert an XLS file to XLSX.

Worksheet data, formulas, formatting, charts and VBA payloads are retained. Macros are not executed. Encrypted files, digitally signed documents and signed VBA projects are rejected. Excel binary .xlsb workbooks and templates are outside the supported formats.

Check after copying or downloading

A downloaded spreadsheet may have a Finder creation date that reflects the downloaded copy, while its embedded workbook date reflects the original document. Inspect both before deciding what to correct.

After saving, use Finder’s Get Info and re-add the output to WordDate. Another save in Excel can update metadata again. Moving or synchronising a file may change filesystem dates without changing the dates in spreadsheet cells.