Finder UI Anger

[Jim The Frog]

Hi all

There is something that Apple discretely changed that doesn't seem to be an issue to anyone - except me, and its driving me nuts. Maybe someone out there can sprinkle some magic dust.

Until relatively recently, when a Finder window was in icon view, you could sort the files by date created or date modified, and all the files would appear in sequence - all at once.

Nowadays they are sorted into year blocks, so the files are NOT contiguous, and if there are more than a few files from the same year, then you either have to scroll off the damned page, or you have to individually select "Show All" in order to get a full and continuous list of files (again, sectioned by year).

Does anyone know if there is a way of just seeing all the files in a finder window in icon view, sorted by either Date Created or Date Modified, without MacOs intercepting and deciding to section them off by year?

This might sound like a trifling problem, but to me it is a MAJOR pain in the whatever, as each time I open the window I need to collapse each year individually - and THAT slows me down.

By contrast, if your finder window in icon view if sorted just by name, then all the files appear in a seamless sequence.

Am I making sense to y'all??

Can anyone help please?

Thanks

 

[frou]

Seems like you maybe right-clicked in empty space and selected "Use Groups". It's in the menubar too under "View > Use Groups"

 

[zevrix]

Like @frou mentioned, it's because you're using the grouping option.

In the icon view, it's especially confusing as there are no columns and it's easy to confuse between the "normal" sorting and the sorting by group.

I assume you used this menu to sort the files:

Well, by default it does the "grouping". So this option must be set to None (which is the same as unchecking the Use Groups option suggested by @frou):

Once Use Groups is disabled (same as None is selected), you can Option-click the same icon and select the desired sorting order, which will result in regular (non-grouped) sorting:

Clear as mud isn't it? Incredibly intuitive. Most of regular Finder users will never figure it out.