I’ve been following this issue for a long time now, and this is the best summation of the problem that I have seen.
@Illiou – while I still think this should be core functionality, the workaround I have recently found is working well. It involves two plugins:
The Linter plugin can insert YAML properties, including Date Created and Date Modified. I have Date Created enabled. There’s also a setting “Force Date Created Key Value Retention” which keeps filesystem metadata changes from altering the original Date Created. Linter be set to act on a key combination, or on a variety of file operations. I have it set to Lint on Save and Lint on File Change, so it’s set-and-forget.
The plugin Update Frontmatter Modified Date “…is different from other plugins in that it does not use the filesystem modified time. The frontmatter will only update when you actually work on a file inside Obsidian.”
The combination of these two plugins is providing me with reliable Date Created and Date Modified in frontmatter that are not subject to mangling by the filesystem.