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.

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