Bases: Date Property Columns Sort Unexpectedly/Incorrectly

Bug reports
1

Steps to reproduce

Create several files with a shared date property and include a variety of dates across several years, including a few dates with the same month. Eg. 02/15/2023, 02/25/2024, 05/01/2025

Insert a new base and limit to the files where the date property is not empty.

Add the date property as a column if it’s not already, and click the column header to sort by that date property.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Yes

Expected result

The rows of the Base view being displayed in ascending then descending order by date chronologically, from oldest->newest / vice versa.

Actual result

The rows of the Base view are displayed in ascending then descending order numerically by month.

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.9.1
Installer version: v1.6.5
Operating system: Windows 11 Home 10.0.26100
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: insider
Insider build toggle: on
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

2

I can’t reproduce this.

3

Sounds as if your entries are being treated as strings.

Is your date property set as a date-type, and is your Obsidian date format the same as what you’re entering (MM/DD/YYYY in that order and with slashes instead of dashes)?

4

I can reproduce it on 1.10.6, months/days are sorted seeming randomly, I tried but can’t make sense of it.

Maybe it just shows MM/dd/YYYY in the UI but it actually follows your global setting for the logic?

5

In the YAML, date properties have the format YYYY-MM-DD regardless of the UI.

How to confirm that

You can confirm this by entering a date in Reading or Live Preview and then switching to Source mode to look at it. If the YAML shows some other format, then make sure it’s date-type and not text-type.

In Bases, when you sort a date-type property directly, you should get chronological order.

If you’re not getting chronological order then you could share a minimum number of your dates that are sorted wrong (paste the YAML) and the base you’re using to sort (paste a full, minimal base for reproduction).