diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index dfa2f4f..e967dc6 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
 
 [project]
 name = "file_auto_expiry"
-version = "0.0.7"
+version = "0.0.8"
 description = "WATCloud project containing scripts to check if directories / files are expired"
 readme = "README.md"
 requires-python = ">=3.7, <4"
diff --git a/src/file_auto_expiry/utils/expiry_checks.py b/src/file_auto_expiry/utils/expiry_checks.py
index 361bd90..e97a88e 100644
--- a/src/file_auto_expiry/utils/expiry_checks.py
+++ b/src/file_auto_expiry/utils/expiry_checks.py
@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ def is_expired_folder(folder_path, folder_stat, expiry_threshold):
     """
     file_creators = set()
     # timestamps for the folder itself 
-    recent_atime = 0
+    recent_atime = folder_stat.st_atime
     recent_ctime = folder_stat.st_ctime
     recent_mtime = folder_stat.st_mtime
     folder_creator = get_file_creator(folder_path)