How to Stop File Explorer Sorting by Week and Month

Anonymous
2019-07-26T21:53:02+00:00

After the recent update Windows file explorer is now grouping items by day, week and month. I do not want this. I want the old way back please. How do I get rid of this new sorting? I hope this is not going to be like what happened to media folders where they now display metadata columns instead of name, date, size, type and even if you change them the next time you open the folder it has reverted back to metadata columns.

Update: I worked out that Group By must be set to none. How do I make this default so it doesn't revert back? I'd also like to stop my media folders reverting back to the old way too so they show name, date, size, type instead of Artist, Album, Title etc

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2019-09-05T03:31:56+00:00

There is no bug.  Someone at Microsoft just managed to apply their default folder setting to everyone that installs the update.

To turn off file grouping feature:

  1. Open a folder that is Grouping by/sorting using week and month.
  2. Right Click in the folder
  3. Select 'Group by'
  4. Select '(None)'

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-05-31T15:28:37+00:00

    YOU have to save the settings!

    What is shown works, but then you have to go click on File and choose:

    Click on File

    Click on " Change folder and search options"

    Click on "View"

    Click on "Apply to all folders"

    It will save what changes you did to remove those stupid time groupings!

    • Jerry

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-06-04T11:10:57+00:00

    You led me to the solution.  Please note the extra step below.

    This is a horrible bug that caused me lots of pain... downloading files again... lots of expense.  Somebody gave me a few bad days.  I appreciate that the software "works as designed", but the design is a bug. a bad one. one that should get someone fired bad.  The option is really cool... but this probably costs thousands of dollars of damage each day.

    >>There is no bug.  

    Yes there is! I couldn't do my work and it took an hour to solve!

    >>Someone at Microsoft just managed to apply their default folder setting to everyone that installs the update.

    Ok, there is a bug.

    To turn off file grouping feature:

    1. Open a folder that is Grouping by/sorting using week and month.
    2. Find a spot in the file explorer windows that is not covered by a file, that menu won't have "group by" in it.. You may have to collapse all groups by right clicking on a header (like this week, or earlier to day, or 5 minutes ago, or ...
    3. Right Click in the folder
    4. Select 'Group by'
    5. Select '(None)'

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-06-27T09:15:46+00:00

    Thank You!

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-07-29T14:37:22+00:00

    And here we are, a year later and there is still no fix.

    Microsoft excels at breaking stuff - the list is longer than my arm.

    But Microsoft has invested all development efforts into ways to cram the store and the cloud down your... and has no interest in fixing the carnage left behind.

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