Sorting

Control the order in which items appear in a Gallery. FotoGrids supports five sort modes — from a fixed manual arrangement to fully randomised display — all applied server-side before the page is sent to the visitor’s browser.

Location Gallery Settings → Sorting

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Default Sort Order #

Setting	Default Sort Order
Options	Manual Date Title File Name Random
Default	Manual

Determines how items are ordered each time the Gallery loads. The sort is applied on the server before the page is delivered — visitors receive items already in the configured order, with no client-side reordering needed.

The available sort modes are:

• Manual — Items appear in exactly the order you arranged them in Manage Items. This is the default and gives you complete control over the sequence.
• Date — Items are sorted by date. Two additional settings appear to control which date field is used and the direction. See Date Type and Sort Direction below.
• Title — Items are sorted alphabetically by their title (the attachment’s WordPress title). An additional setting appears to choose A-Z or Z-A. See Title Sort Direction below.
• File Name — Items are sorted A-Z by their original filename, case-insensitively. No additional direction setting is available at this tier.
• Random — Items are shuffled into a new random order on every page load.

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Date Type #

Setting	Date Type
Options	Date Created Date Updated
Default	Date Created
Visible when	Default Sort Order is set to Date

Selects which date field is used for ordering when Default Sort Order is set to Date:

• Date Created — sorts by the date the media file was originally uploaded to WordPress.
• Date Updated — sorts by the date the attachment was last modified.

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Sort Direction #

Setting	Sort Direction
Options	Newest First Oldest First
Default	Newest First
Visible when	Default Sort Order is set to Date

Controls whether the date sort runs newest-to-oldest or oldest-to-newest.

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Title Sort Direction #

Setting	Title Sort Direction
Options	A-Z Z-A
Default	A-Z
Visible when	Default Sort Order is set to Title

Controls the alphabetical direction when sorting by title. Comparisons are case-insensitive, so “apple” and “Apple” are treated as equivalent.

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How sorting works on the frontend #

Sorting is resolved entirely on the server, before the Gallery HTML reaches the browser. When a visitor loads a page containing a Gallery, FotoGrids applies the configured sort mode to the list of item IDs, then hydrates and renders those items in the resulting order. No JavaScript reordering takes place at load time.

Each sort mode queries WordPress’s attachment data in a single batch — there is no per-item database call regardless of Gallery size.

The Manage Items view in the Gallery editor always shows items in their manually arranged order, regardless of the active sort setting — so you can always manage item positions accurately.

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More Sorting Options Pro #

FotoGrids Pro adds sorting capabilities beyond the built-in modes:

Allow Users to Change Sort Order — displays sort controls on the frontend so visitors can reorder items themselves, without leaving the page.

Advanced Multi-Criteria Sorting — sort by multiple fields at once (for example, date then title as a tiebreaker), or use metadata fields such as EXIF data, file size, and dimensions for precise control.

Metadata-Based Sorting — sort by tags, people, locations, and other metadata to create context-aware Galleries that surface the most relevant items first.