There used to be a way to sort Favorites alphabetically in Internet Explorer but that feature has vanished with the latest version of MSIE in Win8. How do i sort my bookmarks?
If you’re running Microsoft Windows 8 or Win8.1, odds are quite good that you are also running Internet Explorer 11, either in “window” mode (the standard interface where it’s a window on the Desktop) or in the full-screen “Metro” mode (where it takes over the entire screen). Either way, turns out that the Favorites management area hasn’t changed a huge amount, you just have to know that Microsoft decided that sorting options wasn’t important enough to warrant an actual button in the edit window.
Yeah, who thought that, I dunno. Maybe in Redmond they have secret third-party tools that help them manage their Favorites. Or perhaps none of them actually surf the Web and bookmark favorite sites, so it’s never an issue?
In any case, I’ll show you how to sort your Favorites in window view but it works in both.
To start, open up Internet Explorer and look on the top right:
You’ll want to click on the star icon, which gets you to the Favorites menu:
You can see my set of bookmarks, and it’s in random order.
Well, actually, it’s not. It’s in the order that I saved them as favorites, so “Bing” was first, and “Syfy” was last.
To organize and manage your Favorites list, click on “Add to favorites” on the top right (yes, it’s totally counter-intuitive):
There’s the option you want. “Organize favorites…” Choose that.
You can see the set of options here. You can click and drag to reorder Favorites, delete them, create sub-folders (which give you sub-menus on Favorites, quite handy).
But where’s that darn Sort button? It doesn’t exist. Instead, right-click on any of your Favorites and look at what’s in the context menu!
Yup, so the feature’s still available, it’s just hidden in the last place someone is going to look, the context menu for individual Favorites.
Bizarre.
Ah well, now you know where it is. So choose it and in a fraction of a second all your bookmarks are reorganized:
That’s the trick. Click on “Close” and you’re done. Until the next time you want to sort your Favorites!
Got a new laptop and copied all my IE11 favorites (literally thousands) from my backup to the new laptop’s Favorites folder. Sure, they’re all there, but they’re sorted by NAME, not by DATE. Since the browser displayed them by order created, it should be easy to get them to display that same way on the new laptop. At least one other person asked this same question in the comments, but you’ve never addressed the issue.
I don’t know why I think I’ll have better luck with a response that he did, but here’s hoping!
Great tip. Frustrating they hid that option in such an obscure place!
I have now named all my favorites starting with a leading digit to control the sort and keep the ones I use most at the top.
Thanks again!
Al
p.s. Wonder if the comments format can be modified so the thumbnail picture doesn’t obscure the date of the post. Just at thought.
Thanks for the how to, works great.
How do I sort favorites by the date created. It appears that IE 11 only allows sorting by name.
I have the same problem with IE 11 in W7. It has the separate sort by name in organize favorites. I categorize the buttons – STOCKS, PERSONAL, etc. – and that name goes in the front of the favorite so it will sort properly.
Thanks for the tip.
Grant
Will the same procedure work on Windows 10? I was surprised to find my folders sorted Z – A as are the sites within each. They used to be in the order I wanted by clicking and dragging. Also, any new folders are now added at the bottom.
For those of you that are finding that your bookmarks are sorted but then shortly revert to their unsorted state, I am wondering if you have any sort of bookmark synchronization enabled, either through OneDrive or your live.com account? That’s where I’d check…
It looks like many people have tried these directions (including me) and have had some problems or questions. Dave did a great job of explaining the initial directions. Is Dave going to address any of these comments? It would certainly be nice!!! (HINT)
Followed the directions and am now sorted by name. However I didn’t really want that type of sort, although it is more useful than my previously “random” order. I want my favorites to sort dynamically based on most visited. I think that would be most helpful for me. Does this make sense? Does anybody know how to achieve this. Or is this possibly a new feature for the MS dev team to get cracking on?
Thanks, Dave. Got Favorites sorted for now. I had deleted all IE 11 Favorites to copy all my current Firefox bookmarks over.
These steps are so convoluted which is typical of Microsoft. Also my PC did auto Windows Updates which took forever today which slowed my work on the PC. Microsoft is so lame. I still prefer Firefox because at least I can find steps to set it up.
Thank you, it worked.
Every time I move a link a copy is created, and every time I delete something it pops back up again! Any ideas?
If things are popping up again after you delete them, my guess is that you have bookmark synchronization enabled. Try turning it off and see if that fixes the problem.
Thanks for the help with sorting…I have changed from Firefox to IE…sick of the problems every time there is an update.
Happy New Year.
This is one more example that it is amazing how so many things are designed by people that can’t see things from the perspective of users.
Thank you very much – worked a treat!!
I don’t remembering updating my Win 8.1/IE11 recently but the Favorites list has resorted to have my folders display on top of the list. I had it set to have the folders at the bottom of the list and the individual sites at the top. Something changed in the last day. Any ideas on how I can sort my list to have the folders appear after the individual sites?
I’m having exactly the same problem as Steve Seybold…
No matter how frequently I sort my favourites list (alphabetically), IE11 quickly and without any prompting sorts it into a random order… oddly, always the same ‘random’ order. This resorting happens as you watch: having sorted alphabetically, you click on Favourites which is initially correctly sorted, then in a matter of moments the list changes.
IE11 also removes vast amounts of my favourites from within the folders from time to time. I am routinely used to copying and pasting my favourites list from my backup.
I’m the only person who uses this computer – and I’m an IT Manager, so I ought to have an idea about running my own computer!!
I have almost given up on IE – Chrome seems less fraught!
This works, but only temporarily! When I sort by name, it does what it’s supposed to but without prompting reverts back to a random order of folders 🙁
This also works in Windows 7.
Thanks a million. When you get time please tell us where accessories are hidden.
“accessories” as in widgets that appear on the screen? They’re all gone, as far as I know.