Windows 10: Sorting Explorer columns by multiple criteria

Hi,

I used to sort files in the w10 explorer using detailed view by date and then, by left clicking on name, the directories by name.

For some reason, this does not work any more.

Does anyone have an idea how I can do this again, as it worked fine until recently.

Cheers

:)

 

IE11 Favorites Date Modified Changes

If you browse to your favorites folder using Windows Explorer and right click on the column headers in details view, you can add the column "Date Created", and then sort on that column. Unfortunately if you have multiple subfolders like I do, you'll have
to do this within each subfolder. But at least you only have to do this once for each folder and it should remember this setting each time after that.

 

Windows Explorer dates

I don't get a "sort by" option with right click on a file/folder. I do get it using the menus. Unfortunately I find it has no impact on the actual dates given in the File Explorer Columns. Whatever the column is call, the date is the date of the save-as
from Outlook to File Explorer.

 

@LaszloV welcome to tenforums! *Smile

I'm not sure I understand what you're not able to do, could you elaborate?

In Details view you can Sort by Date, left clicking on the Name merely toggles the sort order from A-Z ascending or descending.

 

I tried various permutations of sorting by name and date and I actually can't get the same ordering as the OP. I also don't see any difference in behavior between 1709 and 1703 (the only other ISO I happened to have) so if there was a change then it wasn't recent.

Can you describe the exact sequence you're seeing the problem with?

 

I also haven't seen the capability of multiple sort criteria in many versions of Windows Explorer or the later [in Win8/8.1/10] File Explorer. Each column visible can be sorted in ascending or descending order, clicking a different column changes the view strictly to that arrangement. Generally the columns are sorted alphabetically with Folders first. Compressed/zip files are usually between Folders and files except in Type where they will be at either end of the list.

 

I think you may want to press shift. This is sorted by date and default A --> Z order within that.





and then shift left click on Name to sort backwards by name Z --> A (within original sort by date - check 22-Jul-2017 17:16).





If that doesn't work you could select a date range and then sort within that perhaps

 

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

I will have to be more precise then.
In my screenshot you can see that files are sorted by date. Fine.
But the directories are not sorted alphabetically. Not fine.

What I was able to do was left-click on "date" and the column date would be sorted up or down depending on how many times I clicked on the date heading. Great.

Once the date was sorted the way I wanted, I was then able to ADDITIONALLY press SHIFT+left-click on "Name", to get directories to the top and sorted alphabetically.

The result was a detailed view of the sub-directories on top, sorted alphabetically and ALSO the files sorted by date. *Sleepy

And this I managed to get as the default everywhere and consistent. Now the listings are all over the show and I can't work with this explorer any more because I need to spend time looking for files and, what is worse, to double check and scroll every time I want to open or save something from within a programme. Highly annoying.

That's why any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

Interesting, I didn't know about the SHIFT-click. However, in this scenario I believe the original screenshot is correct behavior. I even tried this on Win7 and it works the same way.

When you first click on Date, you sort everything by date down to seconds (or maybe smaller). Then when you SHIFT-click on Name, you add a secondary sort. That means the sort by name only factors in when the timestamps are exactly the same.

So like in the OP, I sort by Date descending. I deliberately modified the seconds in the folder timestamps for illustration.




Then SHIFT-click on Name. Folders move to the top for some reason. Note that HP and Maxthon3Cache have the exact same modify time - so they are sorted by Name ascending.





I SHIFT-click on Name again and now HP and Maxthon3Cache are sorted by Name descending.

 

So there is no solution to the problem?

Any suggestions? This is really hampering my work with Explorer and I have no idea why someone would change it.

 

As far as I remember, I don't think this has ever worked this way even as far back as Win 3. If you can actually get this to work, it would be very interesting to know how.

 

Do you have another example of folders/files where you expect different behavior than what Windows is currently doing? I tried early versions of Win 10 as well as Win 7 and the behavior is exactly the same as it is today.

 

Ditto. I started with Win3.1 and its File Manager, not that much change over the several versions since then. Customizing may be more possible with third-party file managers such as Total Commander, Free Commander, MultiCommander, etc., many of which can be found on MajorGeeks.Com - MajorGeeks, some paid-for and some free.

 

"Do you have another example of folders/files where you expect different behavior than what Windows is currently doing"

The way it was worked fine for me.
I am using TotalCommander for everyday use, but I can't get all programmes to use this.

"Win 10 as well as Win 7 and the behavior is exactly the same as it is today"
Then I don't know what I was using because there I could do a primary and a secondary sort, which is no longer possible.
You can still see the help topics and howto when looking for this and see the instructions including the Shift-left-click. This no longer works.
I don't know how else to explain this.
Example
sort files/folders using multiple criteria Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

Well, here there was a change.

Here's an example of how it worked previously:
sort files/folders using multiple criteria Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums