Sierra - From any application, can't sort files in alphabetical order (in column view)

Yes. Here's the full frame of my 'open file' dialogue

This is from Safari when I do File / Open.

Right? Am I missing something? Those stills above in my original post were just closeup sections taken using command+shift+4 and the crosshairs.

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

masterfish11 wrote:

Any ideas?

Here is one:

In the Finder, if you hold down the Option key, "Arrange By" changes to "Sort By".

In an Open/Save dialog box, the same happens, except that, as far as I can see, it is absolutely silent.

So maybe you once accidentally made a choice while the Option key was down (meaning Sort By "kind", for example).

I can't guarantee that it is your problem, but in this way I was able to totally reproduce the problem for me.

This is from an Open dialog in Safari. The first image was taken with the Option key down (Sort By Kind).

The second one is *without* the option key (Arrange by Name):

The html files still all come BEFORE the pdf - as dictated by "Sort By" - so changing between Name and None indeed has no effect.

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately, this doesn't fix the issue. My default 'None' seems to be alphabetical in the Finder default in my user, but in the Open/Save dialog, both 'None' and 'Name' do the same thing.

The odd thing is if I hold 'option' down when selecting that button in the Safari Open dialog, the options do not change like they do in your example. When 'option' is down, 'Application' is still an option. I wonder if there's a pref file I can delete that contains the 'Sort by Kind' for the Open/Save dialog.

For what it's worth, holding 'option' in the Finder does change the options like you're describing.

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

masterfish11 wrote:

I've done the Safe Mode with no luck. What operating system are you on where you got the results in your screenshots when File/Open panels allowed for both Arrange and Sort?

The weirdest parts of this whole thing is 1) Finder is fine. I can sort and arrange properly there and 2) My Guest User sorts everything by name properly in the File/Open panel.

I was using High Sierra 10.13.3.

I don't think it is weird that Finder is fine, because the settings are separate.

I have no trouble setting, say, "Arrange by Size" in the Finder, but "Arrange by Name:" in the Open dialog box, and they both stick.

Did you try holding the Option key *before* pressing

OK. I'm on Sierra 10.12.6.

When I hold down 'option' prior to pressing the arrange icon, the options listed stay identical but only in the Open/Save dialog that I'm having the issue with. In Finder, if I hold down 'option' and click the icon, the options change (implying that it's going from arrange to sort options). Seems that the 'sort' options don't show up in the Open/Save dialog as 'Application' is still listed as an option. 'Application' goes away when the 'sort' options show.

If the settings are separate, do you know where the File/Open dialog settings (assuming a preference file) are and what the specific name of the item would be? I was in Xcode looking at my com.apple.finder.plist and found a bunch of different references to the arrange and column vs. list views, etc.

Also, for reference, here are the other places people have had this exact issue in Sierra and it never was resolved:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8051191?answerId=32145737022#32145737022

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7743647

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8051191?answerId=32145801022#32145801022

The summary?

•Trashing the com.apple.Finder.plist doesn't do anything

•Finder preferences (sort/arrange by) doesn't do anything even when set to 'name' for both (someone suggests this as the 'fix', but they must have been having a different issue because this doesn't fix the issue in the open/save dialog box)

•Re-indexing Spotlight doesn't do anything

And again, for me specifically, Finder is behaving fine. It's the Open/Save dialog box where the issue shows up.

I opened a new thread and believe I have the solution here:

Re: Re: File/Open nor File/Save Panel Won't Sort/Arrange by Name in Column View - Sierra

@CountryGirl56 -

I did a safe boot and the same issue showed there as well. I restarted, same thing. Works in Finder, doesn't work in 'open file dialogue windows'.

What is it supposed to look like? I have nothing to compare...Oh, and I should mention that these are partial screenshots of the window, not the entire window itself (if that's what you were responding to)

Thank you!

@VikingOSX - this is very helpful and interesting. I had no idea.

2 things:

1) I'm only confused because the way this happened was I was in Photoshop CC 2018 browsing files that were initially sorted by name. This problem only occurred when I switched it to sort by 'Date Created' and then back to 'Name'. Seemingly, it was fine when I opened it.

2) Is there a way I can test what you're describing locally on my machine running Sierra?

Thank you so much!

@CountryGirl56 - when I select 'None' (as seen in my stills from the Original Post), it shows the exact same sorting as if I select 'Name'. If I bounce back and forth between the two, nothing changes. If I go to something else like 'Kind', it will resort, but then goes back to being out of alphabetical order (a la 'None') when I go to 'Name'.

VikingOSX had an interesting insight. Hoping to see if that is what caused this.