Currently, Obsidian does not support manual drag-and-drop sorting of items in core features such as Bases, files, or lists. Sorting is limited to preset options like alphabetical or date-based ordering.
This creates friction when working with projects, research, or curated lists where the desired order is not logical or metadata-driven, but instead relies on personal preference or workflow context.
For example:
Reordering project notes into a specific sequence.
Curating reading lists that follow a thematic or narrative order.
Organizing tasks or records in a Base in a way that reflects workflow priority.
Notion (and many other PKM/organization tools) support native manual sorting, so its absence in Obsidian makes the app feel rigid in comparison.
Proposed solution
Introduce native manual sorting (drag-and-drop) across Obsidian core features where lists, tables, or records appear (including Bases, file explorer, and linked views).
I just want to add why I think this really needs to be a core feature rather than left to plugins:
Plugins already exist for partial solutions (Explorer and tables), but they’re inconsistent, not always maintained, and don’t work in Bases.
Manual sorting is a fundamental organizational tool — not a niche extra. Most knowledge management and database tools (like Notion) include it natively.
Relying on plugins for something this essential means new users miss out unless they know what to look for, and even then, plugin solutions don’t cover all use cases.
For me, the lack of manual sorting breaks the flow when organizing projects, lists, or research. Having it built into Obsidian itself would make the experience much smoother and align with user expectations coming from other platforms.
Thanks for pointing out the File Explorer workaround — I’m aware of that plugin.
The main issue I’m raising is broader: manual drag-and-drop sorting isn’t available in Bases, tables, or other lists or plugins etc. Right now, you can only sort alphabetically or by date or a predetermined way - not manually via drag and drop, which makes planning and organizing workflows very limited.
This isn’t just about Explorer — it’s about a core feature for Obsidian users who want flexible organization.
As a workaround for lists (besides cut-paste), there are the “Move line up” and “Move line down” commands which can be used to more quickly arrange list items when assigned to a hotkey or added to the mobile toolbar.
I’ll also note a place where drag-drop rearranging does exist, which is the Outline, where it lets you quickly rearrange sections of the document. Very handy sometimes!
