how to sort photos into date taken order windows 11

Question

I have tried so hard to sort my photo into date taken order but they are all mixed up. For 2026 I do not understand why we need any other sort options for photos! it seems date created differs from date taken 😂

Please can someone tell me how to remedy this?

Answer 1

Hi Jane, here are the standard steps:

• Open File Explorer • Go to the folder containing the photos
• Switch to Details view
• Right-click on an empty area in the folder
• Select Sort by • Choose Date taken
• For reverse order, select Sort by → Date taken → Descending

• If Date taken is not visible: • Right-click the column header • Enable Date taken • Click the Date taken column to sort

• This works only for photos that contain EXIF metadata; screenshots or edited images may not show Date taken

Also, The best option if you are a photographer is Exiftool:

https://exiftool.org//

https://exiftool.org/#filename

By writing a new value to the FileName and/or Directory tags, files can be renamed and/or moved to different directories. This can be a very powerful tool in combination with the -d (date format) option for organizing images by date/time. For example, the following command renames all images in directory "DIR" according to the individual file's creation date in the form "YYYYmmdd_HHMMSS.ext".

exiftool "-FileName<CreateDate" -d "%Y%m%d_%H%M%S.%%e" _DIR_

Or a new directory can be specified by setting the value of the Directory tag. For example, the following command moves all images originally in directory "DIR" into a directory hierarchy organized by year/month/day:

exiftool "-Directory<DateTimeOriginal" -d "%Y/%m/%d" _DIR_

I hope you find this information useful. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to reach out. Otherwise, please take a moment to accept the answer. Wishing you good luck!

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