Last-Modified

The Last-Modified response HTTP header contains a date and time when the origin server believes the resource was last modified. It is used as a validator to determine if the resource is the same as the previously stored one. Less accurate than an ETag header, it is a fallback mechanism. Conditional requests containing If-Modified-Since or If-Unmodified-Since headers make use of this field.

Last-Modified is also used by crawlers to adjust crawl frequency, by browsers in heuristic caching, and by content management systems (CMS) to display the time the content was last modified.

Header type Representation header
Forbidden header name no
CORS-safelisted response header yes

Syntax

Last-Modified: <day-name>, <day> <month> <year> <hour>:<minute>:<second> GMT

Directives

<day-name>

One of "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", or "Sun" (case-sensitive).

<day>

2 digit day number, e.g. "04" or "23".

<month>

One of "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec" (case sensitive).

<year>

4 digit year number, e.g. "1990" or "2016".

<hour>

2 digit hour number, e.g. "09" or "23".

<minute>

2 digit minute number, e.g. "04" or "59".

<second>

2 digit second number, e.g. "04" or "59".

GMT

Greenwich Mean Time. HTTP dates are always expressed in GMT, never in local time.

Examples

Last-Modified: Wed, 21 Oct 2015 07:28:00 GMT

Specifications

Specification
Unknown specification
# field.last-modified

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also