Sorting folders in Windows Explorer?

Question

I'd want to know how to ensure that all my folders will be sorted and displayed on top of all the files in Windows Explorer

Answer 1

I'm using Windows 7, so the process might be a little different on Windows 8.1.

First, a possible simple solution.

If you are sorting by Name for example, and you see that the file and folder names are sorted by Name, but in reverse order (descending), and all the folders are grouped together and displayed at the bottom of the list, then just click on the Name column header to restore sorting to Ascending.

If this doesn't help, or if you want to set how folders are displayed for all (or many) folders, then...

Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder you want to change the sorting/grouping of files and folders. If you want to change how it is displayed on the entire drive, then navigate to the root of the drive.

Click the View menu and then Group By.

You will have choices like:

Name
Date Modified
Type
Size
(None)

Choose (None). If you don't see a choice for (None), then it is already set to "(None)".

If you don't see the menu bar with File Edit View etc..., then click on Organise -> Layout -> Menu Bar to enable the menu bar.

Then change the way things are sorted however you like from the menu View Sort by.

When you are done with this, click Tools Folder Options. Then click on the View Tab, and click the Apply to Folders button.

Windows overrides the view of some folders so some folders may not be afffected by your changes.

Answer 2

Solving File Explorer bug:

Sorting in File Explorer with all files sorted as one big group, is the default in Windows 8.1.

This morning my windows explorer had mysteriously switched to bunching or grouping the files in 4 groups: "0-9" "a-h" "i-p" and "q-z".

This created the problem that clicking on the header of the "Date modified" column, to bring up the most recent files in my Documents folder, no longer worked properly - the top listed files would only be the most recently saved files whose names began with numerals 0 - 9. Finding all of the most recent files would require also scrolling down to check each of the "a-h" "i-p" and "q-z" sections, which in my large Documents folder would be very slow and inconvenient. In my normal workflow I want to see all the most recent files immediately whenever I open File Explorer.

The fix to this problem in Windows 8.1 is the same as the procedure Kevin Fegan describes above: In File Explorer click the View tab, click the Group By dropdown, and click None.

I couldn't find Microsoft help instructions for this problem. File > Help said to search in Microsoft Community, directing to the Windows 8.1 "Files, Folders and Storage" which has 1,000 entries with no way to search through them. A Google search turned up nothing.