How to Group Files by Kind, Date or Size in a Mac Folder

October 21, 2026 · 6 min read

A folder sorted by name puts an invoice between two photos and a disk image. Grouping sorts that out: the folder is split into sections, each with a title, so the PDFs sit together, today's files sit apart from last month's, and the big downloads stand out.

In the Finder, choose View › Use Groups (⌃⌘0), then View › Group By, and pick Kind, Date Added, Date Modified, Size or another criterion. In Folia Files, click the two-arrow button in a pane's header and choose under Group By; then save that grouping for the folder, or for the folder and all of its subfolders, so it is there every time you come back.

Folia Files with two panes: Downloads in a detailed list grouped by kind, one section per file type with its count, and trip photos in icons grouped by date created

Group files in the Finder

Turn groups on

Open the folder and choose View › Use Groups, or press ⌃⌘0.
Choose View › Group By and pick a criterion. The Group button of the toolbar offers the same choices; hold ⌥ as you click it to change the sort instead.

The Group By menu lists Name, Kind, Application, Date Last Opened, Date Added, Date Modified, Date Created, Size and Tags, among others. Most have a shortcut: ⌃⌘2 for Kind, ⌃⌘4 for Date Added, ⌃⌘5 for Date Modified, ⌃⌘6 for Size. Press ⌃⌘0 again to turn groups off.

What the Finder's groups look like

Kind puts files into broad families: Folders, Images, PDF Documents, Movies, Music, Presentations, Spreadsheets and so on. A JPEG, a PNG and a HEIC photo all land in Images.
The dates give sections such as Today, Yesterday and Previous 7 Days, then older periods.
Tags gathers files by the tags you gave them.

On the desktop, the same idea is called stacks: click the desktop, then choose View › Use Stacks and View › Group Stacks By.

What the Finder keeps

View › Show View Options (⌘J) repeats Group By and Sort By for the folder in front, next to three settings:

Always open in list view (or icon, column, gallery view), for this folder;
Browse in list view, for the folders you open from it;
Use as Defaults, which makes the current settings the default for folders you haven't set up yourself.

The Finder writes a folder's view settings into a hidden .DS_Store file inside that folder. On a disk it can't write to, or on a network share where those files are turned off, it has nowhere to keep them.

Group files in Folia Files

Choose a grouping

Each pane has its own header. Click its two-arrow button, the one that sorts, and pick under Group By: None, Kind, Date Modified, Date Added, Date Created, Size, Tag or Application. The same list is in the menu bar, under View › Group By. The pane splits at once, with the number of items next to each title, and the sort you chose still applies inside each group.

Groups show in four of the seven views: List, Detailed List, Icons and Gallery. In a list, the title of the group you are in stays at the top as you scroll; in Icons, titles stay pinned above their section; in Gallery, they sit beside each part of the strip. Tree, Columns and Disk Usage have their own structure: there, the grouping waits and comes back when you switch back to a list or icons.

What each grouping gives you

Kind: one group per file type, as the Kind column names it (JPEG image, PDF document, Disk Image…), so a PNG and a JPEG stay apart. Folders come first when Keep folders on top is on (Settings › Panes).
Date Modified, Date Added and Date Created: Today, Yesterday, Previous 7 Days, Previous 30 Days, then each month of this year and each earlier year, the most recent first.
Size: More than 1 GB, 100 MB to 1 GB, 10 to 100 MB, 1 to 10 MB, 100 KB to 1 MB, Less than 100 KB and Empty, the biggest first; folders have their own group until their size is known.
Tag: one group per tag color, in the Finder's order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray), then No Tag.
Application: one group per app that opens the files, with folders and apps apart, and No Application at the end.

Downloads in Folia Files grouped by size and sorted by size: the two Xcode archives, Blender and Figma under 10 to 100 MB, a photo and a PDF under Less than 100 KB

Keep it: per pane, per folder, or for a whole folder tree

In Folia Files, a grouping is part of the pane's view, with the view itself, the sort, the icon size and whether hidden files show.

As you browse, a pane keeps its view from folder to folder. Group a pane by Date Added and every folder you open in it is grouped by Date Added, except folders that have a saved view of their own. Two panes side by side can be grouped differently.
For one folder: click the gear in the pane's header, then Save for This Folder in its View section. That folder now opens with this view, sort and grouping, in any pane.
For a folder and everything inside it: choose Save for This Folder and Its Subfolders. Group Pictures by Date Created once, and every album inside follows. A subfolder can still have a view of its own.

Change the grouping of a folder that has a saved view and Folia Files shows the change without saving it: a dot appears on the gear, and its menu says Changed, not saved yet until you choose Update for This Folder or Revert to the Saved View. The same commands are in the menu bar under View › Folder View Options, for the keyboard.

For new panes, set Group By in Settings › Panes › Default view, or choose Use as Default View in the gear. Show Folders… under Saved Views lists every folder with a saved view, and lets you forget them one by one.

Folia Files never writes .DS_Store files: saved views stay in its own settings, so a folder on a server or a read-only disk keeps its grouping too. Grouping and saved views work the same in both editions, from the website and from the Mac App Store.

Which grouping for which folder

Downloads: Date Added, to see what came in today apart from last month's leftovers, or Kind, to find the installers and archives at a glance.
Photos and videos: Date Created, saved for the folder and its subfolders.
Documents and projects: Kind, with folders on top.
A folder you want to clean up: Size, sorted by size, and the biggest files come first. To go further, here is how to see which folders take the most space.

Grouping is one of the settings each pane keeps on its own, along with its folder and its view: the page on panes, views and scenes shows the rest, and this guide explains how to put two folders side by side.