How to Sort Google Drive by Size, Date, File type, etc.,

Most of us use Google Drive as our goto application for cloud storage. Overtime you store a lot of files there and it becomes tedious to organise or sort files. Also, Google may not always provide a straight forward way to sort files the way you want.

This guide explains how you can sort Google Drive by size, file type, name, owner, last modified date, last opened date, date created.

Sort by Size

There is no out of the box method to do this. Though, there are some tricks using which you can sort your files by file size.

Find the biggest file on Google Drive

This method helps you sort all the files in your Google Drive by size. So, when you sort you will see the biggest file first and when toggling, you will see the smallest file first.

1. Go to your Google Drive dashboard.
2. On the left, select Storage.
3. Now, you can see the files in descending order of file size.
4. Click 'Storage used' to reverse the sort order.

Find the biggest file in a Google Drive Folder

Sorting the files inside a folder by size is not possible on the web for some reason. The file size column is greyed out in the list view, and it is not clickable. We can use a Google Drive add-on, Drive Explorer, to get this done.

Install Drive Explorer from the workspace marketplace. You can use it directly from your Google Drive dashboard or a Google Sheet. Select one or more folders, right-click → Open with → Drive Explorer.

Now, you can sort files by size, name, date created/modified and more (Refer to the image below). Drive Explorer helps you fetch more details about your files like download link, with who you have shared the files with, folder size and much more.

When used with a Google sheet, Drive Explorer can let you rename files/descriptions, share files/folders.

Follow the below steps to sort files by size within a folder using Drive Explorer in a Google Sheet.

1. Open a Google Sheet, select Extensions → Drive Explorer → Start Export → Selected items.
2. Click Add items and select the folder(s) you want.
3. Select Export Details to get the list of files on the Sheet.
4. By default, File size column is not populated. select Choose display fields from the add-on menu (Extensions → Drive Explorer).
5. Check File Size and Save the config. This step is to verify if the files are sorted as required.
6. Now, to sort by size, select Configuration from the add-on menu. In the File sort order section, check File Size and toggle asc/desc (ascending/descending) as per your requirement.
7. Save the config. The sheet will be refreshed automatically.

You can also bulk rename Google Drive files using Smart Bulk Renamer.

If you find the above instructions confusing, you can watch this YouTube video to know-how. You can know more about Drive Explorer add-on.

Sorting the files by ascending order of size will result in something like the image below.

There is one more way you can sort the files by size anywhere inside Google Drive. I have used an Android app for this post. I believe iOS doesn't have much of a difference.

This method can also be used to sort Google Drive trash by size. Trash can consume a considerable amount of your Drive quota so, it's good to clear it time to time.

1. Open your Google Drive mobile app.
2. Go to the trash.
3. Toggle to List view using the icon in the right side.
4. Select the sort option in the left side.
5. Click Storage used.

Sort by File Type

If you want to see only a specific type of file, you can follow this method. List of types supported as of now: PDFs, Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Photos & images, Videos.

Whole Drive

1. Go to Google Drive.
2. Click on the search bar at the top.
3. Select the type of file.

Within a Folder

You may have files of different type within a folder and want to filter files based on a specific type.

1. Open Google Drive.
2. Right click the folder and select 'Search within {{folder name}}'.
3. Now, in the search bar on top enter type: followed by one of pdf, document, spreadsheet, presentation, image, video without space and press enter.

Sort by Date added

Date added/created is the actual date the file was uploaded by the user.

There is no out of the box way to sort by created date. Again, we can make use of Drive Explorer to achieve this. Follow the instructions mentioned in the sort files by size within a Google Drive folder section and click on the 'Created at' column header to sort files by created time ascending/descending.

The image below is a screenshot of files sorted in descending order of created date using Drive Explorer with a Google Sheet.

Sort by Owner

This method lets you filter the files by its owner. In the search bar on top enter owner: followed by the email address without space. This lets you see the files owned by that particular email address.

To see only the files you have shared with a specific person, in the search bar on top of Google Drive enter to: follwed by the email without space.

Credit to Alice for sharing this trick.

Sort by Name/Last modified/Last opened

It is more straightforward compared to other types and you can do this from the Drive interface itself.

'Last modified' is the latest time a file got edited or changed. It can be you or the person who has edit access to that particular file. In the case of  'Last modified me', you must have edited the file. 'Last opened' is the time a file is opened recently.

1. Access your Google Drive.
2. Switch to list view by clicking the icon at the top left.
3. Select the heading in the first row to sort files.
4. You can click the arrowhead right next to the heading to reverse the sort order.

You can also use Drive Explorer to sort files by name, last modified time, as explained before.

Set default sort order

The latest way you sorted the files by Name or Last modified or Last modified by me or Last opened by me will remain your default sort order. When you open Google Drive next time, the files are sorted in that way.