I don't understand the sort behavior I'm experiencing in Finder (MacOS Sierra). Is there anyway to get the 'sort by name' to sort alphabetically such that 0 < 9, a < z, and numbers < letters?
Understanding ‘sort by name’ behavior in Finder
findersort
Related Solutions
The exact sorting order used by Finder probably depends on the locale, but scripting languages like Ruby and Python have libraries for sorting strings naturally.
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -rubygems -KU
require 'natural_sort' # gem install naturalsort
input = "name-II-1
name-6
name-2
name-19".lines
# input = Dir["#{ENV['HOME']}/Documents/*"]
puts NaturalSort.naturalsort(input)
You can right-click on the folder, click on "Show View Options", and then you can modify the "Sort By" default via a drop-down menu.
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Best Answer
Apple OS X uses "natural" sort order in which a string of digits is considered as a unit.
The Apple documentation is in the Finder section of this page.
An old article on Finder sorting that may still be useful is here.
I think Terminal may sort the way you want. There are also several 3rd party alternatives to the Finder which may offer that kind of sorting.