doesn’t seem like it unfortunately
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+1 need it
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Crazy that I can physically organize the physical notes on my desk exactly how I need them.
Or put my post-it notes anywhere I want on my wall exactly how I need them.
Or put notes on the fridge with magnets wherever I want.
But I can’t do that with my digital notes in Obsidian without hacks and workarounds and 3rd part addons that may or may not be maintained.
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Should be core with drag n drop. The custom sorting plugin often break after obsidian gets updated
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Just released, GitHub - Kh4f/obsidian-manual-sorting: A plugin for Obsidian that enables manual sorting within the file explorer using drag-and-drop. I haven’t tested it but looks pretty good on the demo video, and is exactly what most people seem to be asking for in this thread. Present in the community plugins if you search for “manual sort”.
5 Likes
Thanks for sharing this! I have done very limited testing in a separate vault out of caution, and it works well so far with notes, folders, attachments, and canvases. The only thing I didn’t get at first was that you just have to drag a folder or file to the right below a folder to place it within the folder.
I don’t want to dwell, but I am a little fearful that after I put in a lot of time ordering it could stop working and the ordering could be lost. That being said, I’m staying positive and trying to celebrate this seemingly very helpful plugin. I can’t not add the obligatory comment that it would be so nice to have this as a core plugin or feature so that that fear of future loss could be alleviated. But this is quite a game changer for fellow explorers.
3 Likes
Thanks for letting us know about this new plugin. It seems simpler than custom sorting plugin but, unfortunately, it is desktop only. 
3 Likes
I’m happy to inform you that mobile support has been added in version 1.6.0. I hope this improves your experience, and please feel free to report any issues you may encounter!
Kh4f/obsidian-manual-sorting
3 Likes
It is a good news! I tried it and it seems to work well. I have to test it deeply but at first glance it was really a big improvement. Its usage is much simpler than Custom Sort plugin.
My only suggestion is to allow to stay with the standard order in specific folders
For instance, I would like to keep alphabetical order in some folders while reordering manually the parent ones. I don’t know if it could feasible with the current code.
Otherwise, It could be nice to have at least a command to reset the manual order going back to predefined order or a selected one for the content of a folder.
I know that in this case new files will be out of order but I could rerun the command to obtain again the desired one. It could be easy to do that adding it into context menu.
In any case, thanks a lot for your effort on this topic.
1 Like
Cool, so just use
SebastianMC/obsidian-custom-sort
(released 2023, last patch last month)
or
ozntel/file-tree-alternative
(released 2023, last patch mid 2024)
or
Kh4f/obsidian-manual-sorting
(Recent release, recent patch)
or
TfTHacker/DashboardPlusPlus
(Released 2023, last patch 4 months ago)
I’ve not listed the ones I had to filter out for not being updated in 18+ months.
Now I JUST need to compare the features of those 4 plugins and decide which one is most likely to survive for more than 3 years, not obtrusive, and manageable in setup.
And I’ll be ready to sort files manually.
Seems like a reasonable requirement of effort for such an advanced feature. /s
As I understand it, the reason this isn’t implemented natively is because Obsidian is meant to be used with metadata and linking, and you’re not supposed to rely on a folder structure much. And I’ve seen some of the benefits of splitting up more of my notes into smaller bits that can be accessed through links and metadata-dependent display in other files, but it’s just not appropriate for a lot of topics where the sort order simply needs to be decided by “I’ve recently deemed this to be the highest priority file in this category right now.” or “This is the (spontaneously growing and shrinking) list of categories I want to be able to browse without having to define and distribute metadata first every time” - and that’s just not something I can do by editing metadata, and I don’t want to maintain a text-based meta page/note for every category this applies to.
I feel like the least this massive 4-year-old post would warrant is an acknowledgement and some sort of official statement, so we know what to expect from the development of Obsidian.
2 Likes
It is not into the roadmap so it is not something that you will see anytime soon. I’m with you in saying that, for me, this kind of feature should be native but the design principle of the file explorer is to be a file explorer, that’s all, without adding any layer on top of that.
I understand the principle but this is one of the most, if not the most, voted topic so it should be in a top priority list to add a new option for people that needs it but it is not the case. Anyway I keep hoping to be surprised. 
Since I like to reorder folders to have them grouped by topics at glance into the sidebar without using numeric prefix, I was using Custom Sort Plugin for that before starting trying this new entry into the field of file explorer extensions.
Custom-sort plugin is a good solution but you need to add bookmarks and manage them to apply a custom sort. It is not the only way since it has a lot of customization and rules that could be applied.
Manual sort is simpler: you drag and top into the file explorer but you have to use manual sorting for each folder while with custom sort you could apply different sorting in different folders (I don’t use this feature so I’m not sure about it).
The other two are not an extension of the obsidian file explorer but a tentative to replace it. I don’t like them but it is only a personal feeling.
5 Likes
Sort Options
Well, Obsidian has options to organize the files in the side panel, but it doesn’t have an option to disable it, that is, the user is restricted to organize in alphabetical order, from A - Z, or from Z - A, by Modified Time or, Creation Time.
Add a “Disable” option
Having the option to deactivate the automatic organization, the user could choose the order in which his files and folders would be organized, and if it is a problem to have folders and files together, separating the list between folders and files would be a good solution.
2 Likes
+1 I would love to see this implemented
This needs to be implemented!! Nothing gives better peace of mind than being able to customise your files how you want them to be exactly. I know that this is possible through bookmarking and then sorting your files through the bookmark tab but as someone who wants to organise their notes in their entirety, manual sorting should at least be an option. If it’s possible to have complete control over your files and folders in the bookmarks tab, it should possible through the sidebar too.
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Plus one from me - manual/custom sort via drag and drop should exist all across Obsidian. Not just in the file explorer.
I’ve made another feature request for this functionality across all aspects of obsidian in the following feature request:
+1 for sure.
Lacking of custom/manual sort feature is the only reason that I am still stick with Nortion.
This is core functionality. OneNote, Joplin, Notion, Keep, Apple Notes, and others do it. 6 years and no progress? Is this project still being worked on?