Power Automate Desktop Flow Not Publishing – Date/Time Not Updating

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Posted on by AB-01050930-0

Hi Team,

We are facing an issue while publishing a Power Automate Desktop flow. Post‑publish, the flow timestamp is not updating and continues to show a March date.

I tried publishing the flow both yesterday and today (01‑May-2026), but the issue still persists. Additionally, my colleague also attempted to publish the flow and is facing the same issue.

Could you please help us understand the reason for this behavior?

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Power Automate Desktop

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Sunil Kumar Pashikanti 2,077 Moderator on at

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Hi @AB-01050930-0,

If you just published a flow in Power Automate Desktop but noticed the date in your version history is still showing a date from months ago, don't worry. This is actually exactly how the system is designed to work.

How Versioning Works
The version history tracks when a version was created, not when it was turned on.

Saving a Draft: This is what creates a new entry in your history with a fresh timestamp. It records your latest changes as a new file.

Publishing: This simply takes an existing version and labels it as the "official" one for everyone to use.

The Timestamp Logic
If the flow you just published hasn't been edited since March, the history will keep showing that March date. Publishing "promotes" that old record, but it doesn't change the clock on when that record was originally built.

How to update the date
If you need the history to show today's date, you can follow these steps:

Make a very small change to your flow.

Select Save draft. This creates a brand new version with today's date and time.

Select Publish. This new version will now become the official one and will show the current date.

The simple takeaway
Publishing marks a version as official, but it doesn't create a new timestamp. Only saving a new version updates the date.

✅ If this answer helped resolve your issue, please mark it as Accepted so it can help others with the same problem.
👍 Feel free to Like the post if you found it useful.

Sunil Kumar Pashikanti, Moderator
Blog: https://sunilpashikanti.com/posts/

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Riyaz_riz11 4,150 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi,

In Power Automate Desktop, sometimes the timestamp doesn’t refresh immediately after publishing. Try refreshing, signing out and in, or reopening the flow.

Open the flow and confirm you made a change before publishing. If nothing changed, it may not create a new version or update the date.

Make a minor edit like adding a comment, save, and publish again. This usually forces the system to update the version timestamp.

If I have answered your question, please mark it as the preferred solution ✅ . If you like my response, please give it a Thumbs Up 👍.
Regards,
Riyaz

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TechFreak 149 on at

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Hi,

Yeah, this is something a few people run into with Power Automate Desktop, and it can be a bit confusing at first.

What’s happening is the timestamp you’re seeing after publish is not always the “last published time”. In many cases, it reflects:

the last major version change, or

the last time the flow was saved with detectable changes

So if the system doesn’t detect a meaningful change, the timestamp may not update even after publishing.

Since both you and your colleague are seeing the same behavior, it’s likely not a user-specific issue but related to how the platform is handling versioning.

Here are a few things you can try:

First, make a small but noticeable change in the flow:

Add a dummy action (like a Display Message)

Save the flow

Publish again

Sometimes this forces the system to register a new version.

Second, check if you’re editing the correct version:

Open the flow from the portal again

Confirm your latest changes are actually present

Then publish from there

Third, verify sync between Desktop and Cloud:

Make sure you’re signed into the correct environment

Ensure the flow is fully synced before publishing

Fourth, check in the cloud portal:

Go to your flow in the web portal

See if the run history or modified details reflect your recent changes

Sometimes the UI shows an old timestamp even though the backend is updated

If none of this updates the timestamp, it may be:

a UI display issue

or a backend caching delay

In that case, you can:

wait a bit and refresh later

or raise a support ticket with Microsoft, especially since multiple users are impacted

So in short, the timestamp doesn’t always reflect the actual publish action, and minor changes may not trigger an update unless the system detects a new version.

Best regards,
Satyam Pandey

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AB-01050930-0 2 on at

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Thanks for your reply. However, we have made multiple changes, and I recently added a new activity, saved it as a draft, and then published it. Despite this, the flow is still showing the previous version from March.When we check the version history, it continues to display the March date, even though this is an up‑to‑date Power Automate Desktop flow. We regularly update it whenever a new release is available.

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