How do I sort files by type and date on Android?

Last reviewed: September 21, 2026 · Markdown version

Sorting by type is a filing decision; sorting by date is a viewing decision — and confusing them is why file managers feel so unsatisfying. Type says where a file should live on disk. Date says what you want at the top of the list right now. Both are useful; they are simply not the same operation, and only one of them moves anything.

Date: a view, not a move

Every Android file manager can order a folder by date modified — Files by Google, Samsung's My Files, and the Files app on other makers all carry a sort control, usually behind a three-dot menu or a small arrow above the list. That ordering is temporary and that is the point: you want the newest download for ten seconds, not a folder structure built around November 2024.

What is worth thinking twice about is filing into dated folders — a 2026-09 folder, then 2026-10, forever. On a phone that scatters related files across a dozen month-folders and breaks the "all my PDFs" question you actually ask. Ordering a list by date costs nothing and is reversible; building a folder tree out of dates is a structure you have to live with.

Type: the one worth automating

Type is stable. A PDF is a PDF whenever it arrived, so a folder built on type stays meaningful for years, and it answers the question people actually ask a phone: where are my documents, where is that video. It also makes storage legible — a single Videos folder tells you in one glance what a category breakdown in Settings only tells you as a number.

Where Adinand Auto File Sorter fits — and the limit, stated plainly

It files by type: it watches a folder — Downloads by default — and moves what lands there into Downloads › Sorted Files, in sub-folders named for the category: Documents, Images, Videos, Apps, Audio, Archives, Others. What it does not do is file by date — there is no rule that puts a file into a folder for the month it arrived. Its own file lists are shown newest-first, which is the viewing use of date described above.

Three more limits worth knowing before you rely on it:

Categorisation is by file extension only. A .pdf is a Document because of its extension, not because anything read it. A file with no extension at all is never sorted.
The scan is not recursive. Only files sitting directly in a watched folder are moved — never the contents of folders inside it.
It never overwrites and never deletes. A name collision becomes name (1).ext; if a same-named file is byte-for-byte identical it is treated as already moved.

If what you want is a keyword rather than a type — everything with "invoice" in the name into its own folder — that is what its custom rules do: extension list, or "name contains", or both.