Windows 10: Windows Explorer sort function not working for my Photos folders - I click a column to sort...

I'm having a problem sorting my Picture folders. I do have about 50K photos on my computer in about 250 subfolders under Pictures. The folder I've been using to test contains more than 2,000 photos. When I sort by name it works pretty quick, but if I try to sort by Date or Date Taken, the "wait" wheel starts spinning and can take in excess of 10 min to finish the sort. If I exit Explorer and go back in it takes another 10+ min to sort. I've tried adding more RAM went from 8GB to 32 GB, resetting folder, moving to another drive currently on my C drive, I unplugged all my other extern

:)

 

Sorting Explorer columns by multiple criteria

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.

 

Windows Explorer sort function not working - I click a column to sort by and the "wait" wheel spins but doesn't finish

Thanks for all your help and suggestions. I really appreciate your time with this question.

The clean boot didn't really help. I still get the same issue where when I click on the Windows Explorer column heading in a pictures folder the "wait" circle starts and doesn't stop before I give up after about 5 min of waiting.

The Safe Mode option seemed to work. The folders loaded quickly and the contents sorted almost immediately. Some larger folders took about 1-2 min before the "wait" wheel stopped spining, but I was then able to sort every column with no wait whatsoever.

I also have folders on my C and E drive that I've been using, in case it was a Root drive issue or even the Photos folder that was the issue, and it's not.

I'm not sure what all that means, or where to go from here, but it was refreshing to see it working finally. If only I could function within Safe Mode. So where should I go from here?

 

Different views of Photos in Explorer in Windows 10 and Android after sorting by date

I have folders full of photos. Some cameras start the filenames with the date, some with IMG_, some with IMG-, etc.

To get the latest ones sorted at the top of the list in File Explorer, I insert the Date Taken column in the column list and sort by that.

So looking at the files in File Explorer in Details view, I sort by Date Taken. In the list all looks correct.

Then I double-click on the first photo and it opens with the built-in Photos application.

When I look at the photos in a C: drive folder, they appear in order.

When I sort the files with File Explorer by Date Taken on my Android 9 phone, imagine my surprise when the pics have been sorted and displayed by months, even though they are shown in proper date order in File Explorer. So, first the August 2019 photos
appear, then the August 2018, then the August 2017, etc, before the July 2019 pics come up.

Is it the Photos program, or its interaction with the File Explorer, or the translation from Android? It used to be that the Photos application would display in whatever order the File Explorer organized them. Now it does not.

Can this be addressed? Is there a setting in File Explorer or Photos that will change the sorting format?

Thanks.