How to Sort Your Data by Date in Google Sheets

Dates can be used to organise both the contents of individual spreadsheets and the spreadsheets themselves when using Google Sheets. This may be accomplished by making use of the functionalities that come pre-installed with Sheets, and we will demonstrate how to do so.

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How to Sort Your Data by Date in Google Sheets

Utilize the sort range options provided by Google Sheets in order to sort a dataset in your spreadsheet according to the date column.

To begin, pick the complete dataset you wish to sort in the spreadsheet you are using. You should include the column headers in your selection; however, you should leave off the index column if you have one. If you choose to sort the data and you choose the index column at the same time, the numbers in that column will become jumbled.

Click Data > Sort Range > Advanced Range Sorting Options in the menu bar of Google Sheets when the dataset you want to sort is selected in the worksheet.

Activate the “Data Has Header Row” option that appears in the new window that opens. Select the date column you want to sort by from the drop-down option that says “Sort By.”

Then, select the “A > Z” option from the drop-down menu to arrange your dates in an ascending order. In a same manner, selecting “Z > A” will arrange your dates in a descending order.

After that, press the “Sort” button on your keyboard.

As you can see for yourself, your dataset has been sorted by date as of right now.

And with that, you should now be able to read the data in your Google Sheets files in the appropriate chronological order. Extremely practical!

FAQs

Why is my Google sheet not sorting by date?

If the option to sort by range is greyed out, this indicates that you have not yet chosen a range. Verify that you have a range selected, as shown in the example up top, where I’ve marked cells A1 through B4. When you select the Advanced sorting range choices button, a modal window will appear that will assist you in determining the manner in which you would like your data to be sorted.

What is ascending order for dates?

When ordered in ascending order, the letters are listed from A to Z, which can also be interpreted as beginning to end. In terms of dates, putting them in ascending order would indicate that the most recent ones would be listed last and the oldest ones would come first.

What is the default sort order for date fields?

However, if a date column is clicked in Salesforce, the data will always be sorted in an ascending ASCII order. This behaviour occurs regardless of the underlying field format.

Is there a sort function in Google Sheets?

The SORT function in Google Sheets allows us to sort data in a range of cells and provides the sorted output in a new cell range. As the name suggests, this function also helps us sort the data. Through the use of this function, we are able to sort data either in an ascending or descending manner. Additionally, it enables us to sort the data based on a single or multiple column criteria.