# Sort display of topics Alphabetically
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** topic-filter
**Created:** [7 december 2016 om 10:19 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911 "2016-12-07T10:19:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@JagWaugh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JagWaugh)
#### Post date: [7 december 2016 om 10:19 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/1 "2016-12-07T10:19:21Z")
Currently the list of topics can be sorted by replies, views and activity.
What about sorting by title?
Example: Here are some user guides I have created for users, I used a nomenclature for the titles. It would he helpful if the users could sort on title.
> **[User Guides and How-Tos](https://forums.jag-lovers.com/c/user-guides-and-how-tos/39)**
>
> This section of the site is a repository for user guides, how-to documents, and explanations of how the system works. Please do not set this category to muted, otherwise you won't notice when some feature is changed.
---
### Author:  [@McBlu](https://meta.discourse.org/u/McBlu)
#### Post date: [27 februari 2018 om 01:22 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/2 "2018-02-27T01:22:09Z")
I’d like that feature, too. In my case, it is for a category with topics that I’d like sorted by date as each topic has a video recording of a council meeting and it would easiest to digest them in chronological order in terms of finding meetings and having a sense of what is going on in the town.
I found a work around if anyone else reads this thread looking for how they can sort their topics in a category in chronological order of some sort. See this thread:
[https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-change-the-creation-date-of-topics-as-admin-so-can-order-topics-chronologically/81709](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-change-the-creation-date-of-topics-as-admin-so-can-order-topics-chronologically/81709)
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### Author:  [@balupton](https://meta.discourse.org/u/balupton)
#### Post date: [10 oktober 2018 om 13:36 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/3 "2018-10-10T13:36:41Z")
Just wanted to cross reference a post of a user asking for support as they had a difficult time finding a meeting thread in a category. If sorting be alphanumeric was available, this would not be an issue for us.
[https://discuss.jordanbpeterson.community/t/microaggressions-are-fundamentally-different-from-aggressions-how-to-break-down-this-kind-of-nonsense/312/15?u=balupton](https://discuss.jordanbpeterson.community/t/microaggressions-are-fundamentally-different-from-aggressions-how-to-break-down-this-kind-of-nonsense/312/15?u=balupton)
Here is the category in question:
[https://discuss.jordanbpeterson.community/c/meetings](https://discuss.jordanbpeterson.community/c/meetings)
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### Author:  [@outofthebox](https://meta.discourse.org/u/outofthebox)
#### Post date: [22 maart 2019 om 13:05 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/4 "2019-03-22T13:05:23Z")
Hi,
The ability to sort a topic list alphabetically by title would also be helpful for when Discourse is deployed as an intranet.
For instance, in MacOS, Windows, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. “sort by name” is a default or common way to organize files. When Discourse is being used for a staff directory, to provide easy access to policy documents, to provide notes from a regular meeting, and for other common use cases in an intranet, ‘sort by name’ would be a natural and preferred way to organize content within a Category.
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### Author:  [@ChrisBeach](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ChrisBeach)
#### Post date: [22 maart 2019 om 16:53 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/5 "2019-03-22T16:53:21Z")
I’d use this to list topics tagged #recommendations.
Currently I manually maintain an “index” topic with links in alphabetical order to individal recommendations topics, and an automated index page with alphabetical sorting by title would save me a lot of time
[https://se23.life/t/list-of-local-recommendations-in-se23-trades-shops-services-etc/763](https://se23.life/t/list-of-local-recommendations-in-se23-trades-shops-services-etc/763)
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### Author:  [@Nacho\_Caballero](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Nacho_Caballero)
#### Post date: [16 augustus 2020 om 08:19 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/7 "2020-08-16T08:19:11Z")
This would be amazing
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### Author:  [@Jeremie\_Leroy](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jeremie_Leroy)
#### Post date: [3 oktober 2020 om 08:44 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/8 "2020-10-03T08:44:46Z")
Alphabetically sorting would also be useful for me,
I’m building a directory with the tags and i beleive it would be worth to sort the dentists per title.
I would force them to add there name first
[https://francais-a-londres.org/tag/dentistes](https://francais-a-londres.org/tag/dentistes)
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### Author:  [@Heather\_Dudley](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Heather_Dudley)
#### Post date: [3 oktober 2020 om 16:32 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/9 "2020-10-03T16:32:37Z")
I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to sort by any column label in the list:
You can currently sort by replies, views, and activity… why not topic as well?
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### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [3 oktober 2020 om 22:47 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/10 "2020-10-03T22:47:36Z")
This feature was removed after it was pointed out that the alphabetical sort is nonsensical for the Latest view.
For a knowledge base, consider using the `/docs` view of the Knowledge Explorer plugin instead?
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### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [8 juli 2021 om 18:51 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/11 "2021-07-08T18:51:46Z")
Are there any plans to ever bring back alphabetical topic sort again?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [9 juli 2021 om 00:55 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/12 "2021-07-09T00:55:59Z")
Not at the moment, I can see in the context of docs though that makes sense. [Documentation - Discourse Meta](https://meta.discourse.org/docs). Indeed docs does allow you to sort alphabetically.
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### Author:  [@Nick\_Chomey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Nick_Chomey)
#### Post date: [5 november 2021 om 01:34 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/13 "2021-11-05T01:34:13Z")
If I’m not mistaken, Docs only allows you to sort categories and tags alpabetically. Not the topics. I’d love to have this so that I can present the docs in a particular, sequential order.
Edit: I was wrong. You can click the topic list headers - it wasn’t obvious because there is no arrow indicating activity sort by default.
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### Author:  [@santiyounger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/santiyounger)
#### Post date: [16 maart 2022 om 14:08 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/14 "2022-03-16T14:08:53Z")
thanks for pointing this out. Does anyone know with the Docs plugin, if there’s a way to make it all alphabetical by default? Right now the sorting needs to be done manually by the user
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### Author:  [@Nick\_Chomey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Nick_Chomey)
#### Post date: [16 maart 2022 om 14:29 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/15 "2022-03-16T14:29:21Z")
See this topic where I shared a modification for sorting alphabetically. I hope they officially integrate it into Docs in some way [Modifying Discourse Docs to only allow for sorting by Title - dev - Discourse Meta](https://meta.discourse.org/t/modifying-discourse-docs-to-only-allow-for-sorting-by-title/210092/4)
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### Author:  [@santiyounger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/santiyounger)
#### Post date: [16 maart 2022 om 14:55 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/16 "2022-03-16T14:55:19Z")
thanks a lot! really appreciate your method, I’ll definitely give it a try! and I agree, alphabetic sorting is a great feature that a lot of us really need. Thanks again!
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### Author:  [@Seth\_Godin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Seth_Godin)
#### Post date: [24 juni 2023 om 10:37 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/19 "2023-06-24T10:37:33Z")
Thanks for keeping this thread alive. I know that there are strong feelings about alpha sort NOT becoming an option, and many use cases have been proposed, all responded to with defenses of tags and other sorts of search.
I’d love it if someone could suggest a way for me to handle the following use case:
I have 25 topics, each containing a video up for discussion.
It’s important that people work through the videos in the right order.
So, if I number the topics and have an alpha sort, we’re done. The user can start at the top, and work their way down. All they have to remember is where they left off and pick up next time.
BUT
If I use any of the many existing sort options, they get scrambled. The one possible hack is creation date, but that makes it really difficult for me to edit the list in any useful way.
Am I misunderstanding my use case, or am I stuck? I asked the bot, but he gave up.
Thanks.
@codinghorror Jeff, not sure if this hit your radar…
thanks for considering.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [24 juni 2023 om 11:33 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/20 "2023-06-24T11:33:44Z")
> [@Seth\_Godin](#):
>
> If I use any of the many existing sort options, they get scrambled. The one possible hack is creation date, but that makes it really difficult for me to edit the list in any useful way.
Could you edit the topic timestamps to create the order you need? For instance, I changed these ones to be 1 hour apart (00:00, 01:00, 02:00), and then that would allow me to insert up to 59 extra topics in between (with a little timestamp tweak) if I wanted to add in 'Lesson 1.1, Lesson 1.2, etc later). Would that work for you?
(With the category in ‘created at’ order).
Though changing the timestamp once they’ve accrued replies would also change the reply timestamps as well, but if you’re adding a new one this might not affect anything.
Though I admit, it’s not a replacement for allowing a set order of topics in a category, which may be the ideal solution. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Seth\_Godin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Seth_Godin)
#### Post date: [24 juni 2023 om 13:27 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/21 "2023-06-24T13:27:43Z")
yep, that’s the workaround, but of course, the beauty of a community-built software solution is that perhaps we can avoid that…
thanks @JammyDodger
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### Author:  [@nat](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nat)
#### Post date: [27 juni 2023 om 15:30 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/24 "2023-06-27T15:30:42Z")
We currently have a new `/filters` endpoint for logged in users. (Full topic [here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/experimental-topics-list-filter-feature/263641))
> [@Topics list filter feature](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-list-filter-feature/263641/1):
>
> We have recently introduced an innovative [/filter](https://meta.discourse.org/filter) route, enabling more sophisticated filtering of the topics list. Significantly, this marks the initial step towards a unified topic filtering language for both search and filtering. Additionally, the dedicated route for topic list filtering enhances the customizability of the sidebar
> …
>
> ### How to turn it on
>
> Enable the `experimental_topics_filter` site settings in the admin interface.
>
> ### How it works
>
> The [/filter](https://meta.discourse.org/filter) has an input field which users can input a query string to filter through the list of topics.
> …
> Currently this is the list of filters that are supported:
>
> > …
> >
> > `order:activity` order by bump date desc
> > `order:latest-post` order by latest post creation desc
> > `order:created` order by topic creation desc
> > …
> > `order:ANY-asc` flip order on results so it is ascending
I checked in with @tgxworld and it seems like doing `order:title` wasn’t too difficult, and he has made an addition is pending review and merge.
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/22293](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/22293)
Wondering if this is suitable for you?
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### Author:  [@Seth\_Godin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Seth_Godin)
#### Post date: [27 juni 2023 om 15:54 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911/25 "2023-06-27T15:54:29Z")
if the admin can set this as the default for a given topic, it’s going to get the job done, thank you @nat
is there a way to know when it’s working?
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sort-display-of-topics-alphabetically/53911.md?page=2)