Issue with “Sort by Name” Functionality in OneDrive

Question

I’ve noticed an issue with the “Sort by Name” feature in OneDrive and wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing the same problem or has found a workaround.

When sorting files with numeric names, OneDrive doesn’t seem to follow a proper numerical order. For example, instead of sorting as 1, 2, 3, …, 10, 11, …, 100, it organizes them like 1, 10, 100, 2, 20, 200, and so on.

This makes managing and finding files with numeric naming conventions quite frustrating.

Has anyone else encountered this issue? If so, how have you dealt with it? I’m hoping Microsoft might address this soon, but in the meantime, any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Hi Tracy,

On mobile device this issue was from a long time but sorting of files is incorrect in OneDrive.com from last week as well, I was using onedrive.com as an alternative but now this method is also not working. Kindly address this issue It would be great to have proper sorting functionality restored on all platforms.

Screenshot of Onedrive.com having sort by name issue as well

Answer 2

Dear rohitrajstudios

Thanks for raising your concerns in Microsoft Community.

I understand that you are experiencing an issue with abnormal file sorting in OneDrive. This is indeed a troubling problem.

I tested it on OneDrive.com, synced folders, and mobile devices. The results show that the sorting of files is correct in OneDrive.com and the OneDrive folder on the computer. For example, the following figure:

But on mobile devices, the sorting is indeed wrong:

Therefore, I speculate that this is due to the different file name sorting algorithms on mobile devices. On mobile devices, the sorting will be sorted character by character according to the file name, rather than counting all the characters of the file name. Therefore, this situation occurs.

Because the system architecture of mobile devices and computers is different, there will be differences in the algorithms of some functions, but this does have an impact on viewing. We recommend that you give feedback to the development team on this issue so that the development team can understand the problem and improve it.

Send OneDrive Feedback - Microsoft Support

As an alternative, you can use OneDrive.com to view the correct sorting.

I hope this is helpful to you and don't hesitate to ask any questions. I look forward to hearing from you and will continue to assist you.

Best Regards,

Tracy - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist