When "Last modified" date in Google Drive can be different than "Last edit" date in corresponding document?

Question

Up until now I was more than sure that "Last modification" date in Google Drive's column and "Last edit" date in Google Docs for the very same document / file must be exactly the same and in sync, because they mean exactly the same.

However, today I have spotted the following in Google Drive:

Versus the following in Google Docs:

What am I missing?

Refreshing both pages (Drive and Docs) brings no change. Both screenshots shows exactly the same file, of course (second screenshot captured after a double-click on item in the fist screenshot).

EDIT: The date given in first screenshot is from the "Last modified" column, as per question's title.

Answer 1

The "Last modified" column is actually the same column for any of three dates (see below), the date displayed changes according to the selection done in the dropdown. As the screenshot doesn't show the column header we are not certain about what date is displayed.

Google Drive might show three different dates

1. Last modified
2. Last modified by me
3. Last opened by me

Perhaps what you are seeing in Google Drive is "Last opened by me". Look at the Google Drive list headers. If you are displaying the "Last modified" date and it doesn't match the Google Docs last modified date that might be caused for many technical reasons, i.e.

• The browser is showing cached data. To solve this do a forced refresh i.e. press shift and click the web browser refresh button or clear the cached data or try in Chrome using incognito mode, etc.
• The data is not synced across Google apps / data centers. This could be solved only by Google, so you might submit your feedback by using the Google Drive help menu. Bear in mind that only Google can tell if they will contact you regarding the specific report, "silently" fix this soon, etc.