How To Sort Feeds In Google Reader Alphabetically Again

Status
Not open for further replies.

Osiris

Golden Master
Messages
36,817
Location
Kentucky
How To Sort Feeds In Google Reader Alphabetically Again

Google Reader sorts the feeds alphabetically which is probably the natural way of sorting news feeds. Once the user begins to move feeds around by dragging and dropping them to another location the sorting turns from alphabetical to one that does not sort the feeds at all but adds new feeds at the bottom of the list.
Users should not confuse that behavior with the temporary addition of new feeds to the bottom of the folder they have been put into. Once a user logs out and in again the feeds are sorted alphabetically again.
Google Reader offers no “sort” button that would make it possible to sort the feeds alphabetically again if the user started dragging and dropping around feeds previously. If you are one of those desperate users who want their feeds to be sorted alphabetically again read on.
The sorting setting in Google Reader is folder based. This means that creating a new folder and moving the RSS news feeds to that new folder will do the trick. It still requires some manual work on behalf of the user but it is actually the only way enable to sort the feeds alphabetically again.
Now here is what you do. The left pane shows a Manage Subscriptions. A click on that loads all the RSS News Feeds that the user has added to Google Reader.

New folders can be created by clicking on the Change Folders pulldown menu and selecting the New Folder option.

And enter a name for the new folder.

The next step depends on the following. If you have been using folders before you can filter by those folders at the top right corner so that only the items of one folder are showing up.

That ensures that all rss news feeds that have been in a folder are displayed on screen and that they can be moved to the new folder without the other feeds interfering in the display.
A click on Change Folders next to each feed that is displayed makes it possible to select the newly created folder. Once all feeds that belong to a folder have been moved into the new one the old one can be removed the same way. Going back to the main page of Google Reader will show the feeds sorted alphabetically.
It sometimes is required to logout and login before they show up sorted but it is definitely working that way. If a user has not been using folders before he has to start using at least one folder for all the RSS news feeds so that they show up sorted again.
It is also important to note that feeds should not be dragged and dropped into folders anymore. The proper way of moving them to another folder is to use the Change Folder menu which appears in Manage Subscriptions and when clicking on the RSS News Feed itself in the main interface.
 
Google Reader Now Offering Option To Sort Alphabetically

Just four days ago a post entitled How To Sort Feeds In Google Reader Alphabetically Again was published on Ghacks that helped users of Google Reader to sort their feeds listing alphabetically again. The default sorting is alphabetically which becomes void when the user begins to drag and drop feeds around in Google Reader. Four days ago there was not a way to enable the option to sort feeds alphabetically again.
The only way to enable alphabetically sorting again was to create new folders and add the feeds to them. New folders sort the items alphabetically by default.
A comment by Fernando mentioned that Google added a new Options links beneath the feed list next to Manage Subscriptions in Google Reader that makes it possible to select the default method of sorting the feeds. The option can be set to “alphabetical” or “my order”. Selecting alphabetical will sort all feeds alphabetical again. One interesting aspect of the choice is that users who choose alphabetical will not be able to move feeds around in the same folder in Google Reader. It is still possible to move them to another folder though.

If alphabetical has been selected as the default sorting option then the feed items will stay alphabetical in their folder and new items will automatically assume the correct alphabetical position in the folder that they are moved into.
This finally gives everyone who was frantically looking for a way to enable alphabetical sorting in Google Reader a way to enable it again.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom