Windows 10: Wrong alphabetical sort in Windows Explorer when "show file extensions" is ON

Movie titles is a great example, if you got 3 files,


Lord of the Ring

Lord of the Ring 2

Lord of the Ring 3


and turn ON "show file extensions", then it sorts like this:


Lord of the Ring 2.mp4

Lord of the Ring 3.mp4

Lord of the Ring.mp4


This happens because Windows by mistake consider the file extension a part of the file name.

As " " comes before ".", this results in wrong sorting.


How Microft can make such an embarrassing mistake or, even worse, decision, is beyond me.


Now the question is: How do we make Microsoft FIX IT???

:)

 

Wrong alphabetical sort in windows explorer - NOT a numerical/literal matter

I just found the cause of the problem, which raises a new question.

It turns out that when you turn "show file extensions" on, the extension is considered to be a part of the filename.

As 'space' comes before 'dot', it results in wrong sorting. With "show file extensions" off, it sorts correctly.

Now my question is: are there any way to make the sort routine ignore the file extension with "show file extension" on?

 

sorting jpg files

Hi

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

Could you let us know, are you trying to sort in files in Explorer or Photos app?

If you are sorting in explorer, follow the steps mentioned below.

1. Open the folder in which files are stored.
   
2. Right click on empty space of window.
   
3. Select Sort by and click on
   Type.
   

If you are trying to sort in Photos app by extension, we would suggest you to provide your feedback in
Send feedback to Microsoft with the Feedback Hub app
as there is no option available to sort by extension in the app. However you can sort by Modified, Newest, Oldest, and Alphabetical.

If you want to look only for the files with .jpg extension in photos app, you may type
*.jpg in the search bar.

Hope it helps.

Let us know if you got the help you needed by clicking Yes or No.

Manjunath H

Microsoft Community – Moderator

 

Possible to search for duplicate titles that have different extensions


My previous post answered the question you asked in your original post, about how to search files with multiple extensions.

If you instead of that only want an alphabetical list and see if a title is present with both PDF and EPUB extensions, then simply set View preference to details, sort the folder by name, and show file extensions:




(Click to enlarge.)
Now your File Explorer will show an alphabetically sorted list. Browse the list to find duplicates.