# Can sort by modified take into account children folders? **URL:** \ **Category:** Help & Support\ **Created:** [February 5, 2026, 5:29pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498 "2026-02-05T17:29:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/kuroonehalf/32/73113_2.png) [@Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/u/Kuroonehalf)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 5:29pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/1 "2026-02-05T17:29:37Z")
I have this big folder where I dump a lot of things (let's call it root) and I have it sorted by date modified. I know by looking at the first two rows that these are fresh things I'm still working through, and whenever I'm done with them I'll put them in the correct place. However, sometimes the modifications I'm doing to something are 2 folders deep, and no modification is necessary 1 level deep, and that results in the folder not changing its sorting on the root folder, and me forgetting that I'm not done working on it. This seems to be because the date modified algorithm simply looks at the folders in the current directory, and doesn't account for anything that happens in their children. Is there a way to modify this behavior? Even accounting for 1 level deeper would be nice. ---
**Author:** ![Jon](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/jon/32/12713_2.png) [@Jon](https://resource.dopus.com/u/Jon)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 5:30pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/2 "2026-02-05T17:30:57Z")
It's a limitation of the way Windows works unfortunately; file changes in a folder cause the folder's timestamp to be modified but the change doesn't "bubble up" to parent folders. ---
**Author:** ![Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/kuroonehalf/32/73113_2.png) [@Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/u/Kuroonehalf)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 5:31pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/3 "2026-02-05T17:31:37Z")
Dang, no way around it huh? Thanks for the reply. ---
**Author:** ![Leo](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/leo/32/69732_2.png) [@Leo](https://resource.dopus.com/u/Leo)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 5:34pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/4 "2026-02-05T17:34:39Z")
This might be what you want: > [@Newest File column](https://resource.dopus.com/t/newest-file-column/18765/1): > > Overview This script provides columns which show the name and date of the newest file below each folder. The script adds ten columns. You'll only use one or two at a time. Five of the columns report on files directly below each folder, ig… ---
**Author:** ![Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/kuroonehalf/32/73113_2.png) [@Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/u/Kuroonehalf)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 5:40pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/5 "2026-02-05T17:40:23Z")
Ooh it might. I'll definitely try it out! Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/kuroonehalf/32/73113_2.png) [@Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/u/Kuroonehalf)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 5:54pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/6 "2026-02-05T17:54:12Z")
Hmm, it doesn't seem to cache results, so every time I go to root it tries to recalculate, and my root has tons of stuff, so it takes upwards of 20 seconds to finish its work and show the correct sorting. Unfortunately that makes it unusable for me. ---
**Author:** ![errante](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/errante/32/61692_2.png) [@errante](https://resource.dopus.com/u/errante)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 6:03pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/7 "2026-02-05T18:03:44Z")
You can get good speeds with this other one if you use [Everything](https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9787). > [@EVDirRanges : Min/max values in folders](https://resource.dopus.com/t/evdirranges-min-max-values-in-folders/57880): > > This script add-in adds columns showing min/max values for common properties of a folder's contents, leveraging Opus's integration with Everything (voidtools). Main features : Built with speed in mind. Uses Everything to get the data, so … ---
**Author:** ![Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/kuroonehalf/32/73113_2.png) [@Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/u/Kuroonehalf)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 9:12pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/8 "2026-02-05T21:12:12Z")
Hm, is one of these options equivalent to modified, but recursive? One that takes into account additions, changes, and deletions, all in one? The ones I've been trying don't seem to do all. ---
**Author:** ![errante](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/errante/32/61692_2.png) [@errante](https://resource.dopus.com/u/errante)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 9:31pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/9 "2026-02-05T21:31:00Z")
Yes...Have you tried it? If I'm understanding correctly, you just need to use the `Newest File Date Modified (Recursive)` column at the root level. The values are tied to Everything's index, so anything Everything picks up through its change tracking would be covered. **Obviously** , you'd still need to do a manual refresh if you made (un)intentional changes since the last time the values were calculated (That is, it **doesn't** automatically detect if the value has changed if that's what you mean, and AFAIK no column could detect something like that in this context). But in a normal scenario (with the necessary content indexed), recalculation should happen in ms. ---
**Author:** ![Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/kuroonehalf/32/73113_2.png) [@Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/u/Kuroonehalf)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 11:13pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/10 "2026-02-05T23:13:13Z")
Yeah that doesn't seem to be working for me. I sorted by Newest File Date Modified (Recursive), deleted a folder 2 levels deep (root/child1/child1-1), and child1's position did not get sorted to the top on the root folder. ---
**Author:** ![errante](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/errante/32/61692_2.png) [@errante](https://resource.dopus.com/u/errante)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 11:52pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/11 "2026-02-05T23:52:44Z")
> [@errante](#): > > it **doesn't** automatically detect if the value has changed You just need to do a manual refresh 🥹 ---
**Author:** ![Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/kuroonehalf/32/73113_2.png) [@Kuroonehalf](https://resource.dopus.com/u/Kuroonehalf)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 11:55pm UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/12 "2026-02-05T23:55:13Z")
I did hit F5 and waited for the load bar. ;w; ---
**Author:** ![errante](https://resource.dopus.com/user_avatar/resource.dopus.com/errante/32/61692_2.png) [@errante](https://resource.dopus.com/u/errante)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2026, 1:32am UTC](https://resource.dopus.com/t/can-sort-by-modified-take-into-account-children-folders/58498/13 "2026-02-06T01:32:18Z")
Ok. I've just tested it myself. Note that to take folder properties into account, you need to set `ignore folder properties` to **False** in the script settings. And there was indeed a bug (I'm not sure if this was already happening when I originally wrote the script or if it's a recent change in EV): when mixing folders and files and asking Opus/EV to return sorted results, folders and files were being sorted separately. Because of that, the first item isn't necessarily the one we actually want. Please update to **v2.1** , where this issue is fixed. Following your example: Additionally (and this is _not_ a script bug) when you delete a nested file, you'll notice that the containing folder doesn’t update its value. That's expected, since the script doesn't pull information from the folder itself. However, at least in my case (with your example), the modification date of that folder _does_ get updated to a recent date. To solve this, you could add this **Evaluator** column that takes the most recent value between the Everything column and the folder's modification date. > **XML code** > > \ > > m = modified; > if (!is\_dir || !IsSet("scp:EVDirRanges/newest\_modified\_recursive")) return m; > ev\_val = Val("scp:EVDirRanges/newest\_modified\_recursive"); > return ev\_val \>= m ? ev\_val : m;