Microsoft Lists not sorting properly like a table in excel would

Question

I have a shopping list with 3 columns, Item, Need, Category.

I sort it in the following order

1 Item (all values are unique)

2 Category (10 different values)

3 Need (2 values, need or empty cell)

It loses the sorting from the Category when I sort it by Need and puts the items in order of the date and time when I added them to the list.

this is driving me slightly crazy ... Of course, I can just filter by 'need' after the second sort but I am just not understanding why it pays heed to the time when the item was added or changed and does not just leave that column in the alphabetical order as soon as I sort by 'need'. I expected it to sort as it would in an excel table.

When I only sort the item column A-Z it puts them in alphabetical order and disregards that I added some items later, which is what I want to continue.

It also loses the alphabetical order already at second sort by category.

Answer 1

Dear Ulli1,

It seems that I can't reproduce the issue from your description.

From example, I have the list with the Category column sort in the alphabet order.

Then I filter by Need.

Finally I add the new item Sprite, the Category column is still in the alphabet order.

So if something is misunderstood, could you give some examples about your requirement and show us some screenshots about the reproducing steps of the issue in your environment for our confirmation?

Note: Remove any private information before uploading the screenshots.

Thanks for your effort and time!

Sincerely

Cliff | Microsoft Community Moderator