How To Sort Google Sheets By Date

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Google Sheets is a versatile tool that provides users with a plethora of features to make data manipulation and analysis a breeze. One common task that many users may need to perform is sorting data by date. This blog post will guide you on how to achieve this.

Pre-requisites

You need to have a Google account to access Google Sheets. If you don’t have an account, you can create one here.

Steps to Sort by Date

Step 1: Open Your Google Sheets Document

Firstly, open the Google Sheets document you want to sort by date. If you haven’t created one yet, simply click on the “+” button to create a new spreadsheet.

Step 2: Highlight the Column

Next, highlight the column that contains the dates you want to sort. You can do this by clicking on the letter of the column at the top.

Step 3: Sort the Column

After you’ve highlighted the column, go to the “Data” menu at the top of the page. Here, you have two options for sorting:

  • Sort sheet by column A-Z: This will sort the entire sheet based on the dates in ascending order (earliest to latest).
  • Sort sheet by column Z-A: This will sort the entire sheet based on the dates in descending order (latest to earliest).

Simply click on the option you want, and Google Sheets will automatically sort your data.

Notes

Keep in mind that for this function to work correctly, your dates must be in a recognized date format. If they’re not, you might need to change their format first.

To change the format of a date, you can use the following function:

    =date(year, month, day)

Replace “year”, “month”, and “day” with the appropriate parts of your date. For example, if you have a date formatted as “12.31.2020”, you would enter:

    =date(2020, 12, 31)

Then, copy this cell and paste the value (not the formula) into the original date cell. Now, your date is in a format that Google Sheets recognizes, and you can sort by it as desired.

Conclusion

Sorting your Google Sheets by date is a handy tool for organizing and analyzing time-oriented data. With just a few clicks, you can have your data sorted in the way you want. Happy sorting!