How to force Win11 to sort files the way I want when opening directory?

GeneralLee01 · Apr 15, 2022

Hi all,

Win11 sort files in a certain order , no idea what order that is, possibly NAME

When one has set sorting to something else (for instance DATE in my case ) windows still opens a directory with the files sorted in the standard order and then takes 5 to 10 seconds to change the order to DATE.

This happens all the time, so also after one has already set sorting to DATE and has visited the directory multiple times.

I find this waiting annoying.

Is this standard Win11 behavior ? Is there a fix / solution for this issue ?

Thanks

RFS · Apr 15, 2022

I've just tried sorting my documents folder into date order. After exiting, and then going back in, it still displays in date order. So I don't see your problem.

IanMosley · Apr 15, 2022

GeneralLee01 said:
Is this standard Win11 behavior ? Is there a fix / solution for this issue ?

Please see this Windows tutorial.

Winuser · Apr 15, 2022

I just tried it on my desktop, and it's working like it should. My guess is a program or setting is causing the problem.

GeneralLee01 · Apr 16, 2022

IanMosley said:
Please see this Windows tutorial.

Hi Ian. I am not sure I understand your suggestion. I do know how to change sorting and have the folders set to sort to date.

But internally windows sorts differently, so when opening a folder windows first takes up to 10 seconds to sort the folder according to my settings.

GeneralLee01 · Apr 16, 2022

RFS said:
I've just tried sorting my documents folder into date order. After exiting, and then going back in, it still displays in date order. So I don't see your problem.

Mine does that too. But when opening tghe directory windows takes time, up to 10 seconds, to sort the thousands of files. So I suspect internally windows uses a different sort setting and not my sort setting.

GeneralLee01 · Apr 16, 2022

Winuser said:
I just tried it on my desktop, and it's working like it should. My guess is a program or setting is causing the problem.

Hi Winuser. How should it work ?

badrobot · Apr 16, 2022

Mine is okay, too. Opens instantly by preference.

GeneralLee01 · Apr 16, 2022

I did did another check and will try to describe the issue a bit better:

Folder is set to sort on DATE, did that eons ago.

- I open the directory in fileexplorer. After this I do nothing, hands-off
- Thumbnails are visible instantly , sorted by "I am not sure by definitely not DATE"
- Then a green bar is slowly getting longer over what I think is the called directory address bar
- When the bar is at the end the thumbnails are re-ordered and are now sorted on DATE
- End

Winuser · Apr 16, 2022

GeneralLee01 said:
Hi Winuser. How should it work ?

What ever sort order I choose is how File Explorer opens. There is no waiting for the files to get sorted.

GeneralLee01 · Apr 17, 2022

Winuser said:
What ever sort order I choose is how File Explorer opens. There is no waiting for the files to get sorted.

Thanks. How many images are in the folder ?

Winuser · Apr 17, 2022

GeneralLee01 said:
Thanks. How many images are in the folder ?

My largest folder of images has 120 photos.

GeneralLee01 · Jun 9, 2022

I did some extensive online searches but it seems this can not be fixed easily. The standard way Windows sorts a directory is hard coded.

GeneralLee01 · Nov 12, 2024

Also, when sorting on date this is not saved. It has to re-do it eacht time. It first display the default sorting and then after a few seconds (up to 10 in my large directories) displays sorting by date,

LesFerch · Nov 12, 2024

The essential "thousands of files" wasn't mentioned until message #6. That's key here. What you're observing, given the large number of files, is normal.

However, I would suggest comparing the time to open the folder using the Windows 11 Explorer versus the Windows 10 Explorer (which is still part of Windows 11). To run that test, simply open Control Panel and click the up arrow icon once or twice. Voila, you're in the old Explorer. Then just navigate to your folder in question and see if it opens any faster. If it does, then we can talk about options to switch to the old Explorer.

If it makes no difference, then you might want to look at third-party file managers that are faster (we'll have to run some speed tests to identify the fastest ones). Of course, organizing the files into smaller groups is another solution, but I understand if that doesn't work for you.

GeneralLee01 · Nov 13, 2024

Hi LF,
Thanks for the help

LesFerch said:
The essential "thousands of files" wasn't mentioned until message #6. That's key here. What you're observing, given the large number of files, is normal. . . .,<snip>

I kind of disagree. The default Win sorting is instant. Sorting by date is not.

Windows 11 Explorer versus the Windows 10 Explorer

Same issue. Sorting is instantly and then it takes a long time to change it to the default date setting.

you might want to look at third-party file managers

As far as I know there are no file managers that seamlessly take over all Win11 open, save, save as dialogs.

LesFerch · Nov 13, 2024

Name, Date Modified, Date Created, Type, and Size are all file system properties. Sorting on any of those properties should be nearly instantaneous.

However, if you're sorting on "Date", that is a "smart" property field which will first try to display "Date taken" which must be read from the metadata property of each file. If the "thousands of files" are photos, that will take a long time.

The thumbnails are fast because they are cached. Which leads to the question of whether indexing helps with sorting by a metadata property such as Date taken.

LesFerch · Nov 13, 2024

Update: I just ran a test with a folder containing 7400 photos that all have the "Date taken" metadata. Sorting by "Date modified" or "Date created" is instantaneous. Sorting by "Date taken" takes about 4 seconds. Indexing the folder, unfortunately, made no difference.

LesFerch · Nov 13, 2024

Here's a potential workaround:

Use a tool to bulk change every photo's file system Date created property to match Date taken.
Use TeraCopy going forward to copy photos from one place to another so that Date created is preserved.

Then you can set the folder to be sorted by Date created which will be instant and it will show the same order as Date taken.

I'm still trying to identify a good tool to reset Date created to match Date taken. So far, I've tried EXIFTool and BulkFileChanger, but was not satisfied with either.

Update: I didn't find a tool I liked, so I wrote one in C#. Let me know if you're interested.

How to force Win11 to sort files the way I want when opening directory?

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