Terribly sorry if this is too “tech-supporty”. I’ve been searching for an answer to this question for a long time—versions of this question were posted to the Reddit communities r/techsupport and r/WindowsHelp here and here, respectively, on September 8, 2025, and to r/software here on September 13, 2025, to no help. I didn’t initially post it to Microsoft Q&A because of fundamental issues with posting questions to it on the loaner computer I was using, and immediately after finally “succeeding” using a new loaner computer and browser on October 24, 2025 (following a failed attempt with “just” a new loaner computer on October 9, 2025), it was immediately deleted for supposedly violating the platform’s Code of Conduct.

The specific computer I’m talking about is a 2021 Lenovo Thinkpad T14s Gen 2 (AMD) with an AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 5650U with Radeon Graphics processor at a nominal 2.30 GHz, 16 GB of RAM (of which 14.8 GB is usable), the 1920 × 1080 display, and an SSD advertised as 512 GB; currently running Windows 10 Pro version 22H2, build 19045.6216 on its internal drive.

So, here’s what I did:

I (inadvertently) let my OneDrive subscription expire from May 2024 to April 2025. 1.

After purchasing the service again a bit before it was due to trash my files, I continued to prevent it from syncing (it starting to “Process[ing] changes” each time) as it had content saved in my OneDrive-synced folders I didn’t want in OneDrive, and I didn’t have a good means of Moving it somewhere else. 1.

After finding a solution to Move items outside of OneDrive-synced folders, I decided to finally sync again on July 27, 2025. 1.

Miscellaneous problems popped up with overlong path lengths and exceptionally long “Looking for changes” times. (Relevant posts on July 29, 2025 and August 5, 2025, though I think I’m past these issues now. At least, they’re irrelevant for the moment.) 1.

Overnight when I was asleep on August 13, 2025, it finally started syncing in earnest, at least apparently. 1.

In the middle of the sync process, a “Path is too long” error occurred as I had forgotten to crop a particular path short enough for the limitations of OneDrive, stopping it. 1.

I wake up to find the error and the folders it managed to sync all having “Dates modified” set to when they were synced, while the rest of the folders were intact. 1.

Afterwards, I have not deliberately shut down or seriously used the computer since then. (Indeed, I have disconnected it from the internet to prevent it from receiving updates or transferring other potentially unwanted packets, with occasional brief {~30 second} exceptions just to keep the system clock accurate.) It did, however, once restart on its own.

I strongly oppose this folder modification date change behavior and think it’s absolutely incompatible with a service meant for data backup and mirroring. And I don’t remember it historically being the case—while one could say that my memories can maybe be explained by it syncing near-immediately after downloads or file creation, I had been using that computer on a free OneDrive plan and IIRC exceeded its 5 GB limit before getting my paid OneDrive plan in January 2023, and there is no large block of near-simultaneous folder “Dates modified” from that time.

I recognize there are probably tools I could use to “correct” those dates, but there are several potential concerns with this:

My last physical backup (an unlocked/“rolling shutter” sector-by-sector image) was in late May 2025, while I stopped majorly using the computer on June 16, 2025, leading to at least 20 days of missing old folder “Dates modified” data. (The reason I stopped being spooky issues with the file system and SSD write amplification that made me want to switch to a new install after archiving everything... which I am still trying to do.) Also, that backup may presently be inaccessible for reasons regarding the health of the drive it was stored in—outside that drive, the last physical backup I have dates to ~March 2024, when OneDrive was still active. 1.

For non-backed-up folders, or those that have been changed since then, AFAIK the only source of folder modification times that can be reflected is the creation (modification?) times of items currently within those folders as a lower bound, not other sources of folder modification time change like file and folder renaming and moves. 1.

Even in the case of creation/modification times of items currently within those folders, depending on how, a correction that still may not authentically represent the original times. (It would if Windows directly transfers the time of the most recent modification-worthy event to the folder, but may not if Windows signals that a modification has occurred to the thread handling that folder, which writes the time when it processes the signal, resulting in a slightly later timestamp considering the resolution of NTFS, the degree of time difference depending on the specific computing environment at the time.) 1.

If I manually “force correct” them, then I’m not sure I or anyone else can ever fundamentally trust the time metadata on items in this filesystem anymore—I may as well be just making it all up. 1.

Even if I manage to correct them, wouldn’t this metadata change signal to OneDrive that the most up-to-date version of the item is not synced, leading it to resync and reset the Date modified again?

And so, the question.