Preview shows photos in random order

Open the folder that has your ordered filenames in list view. Click the first file, press the shift key, and click the last file. All of the files will be selected. Now, right-click and open with Preview. They will open in name order, and retain this order left to right in the contact sheet too. Tested on M1 mini with Big Sur 11.0.1.

Howdy,

Preview appears to open files based on when the file was last opened, not based on the name of the file.

I numbered some files (testing with "1, 2, 3…" as well as "01, 02, 03…") and the filename didn't matter.

Opening them individually from 01 to 18 then reopening them all at once, for the most part, they opened in date opened sequence, oldest first, with the exception of the oldest opened file which always moved toward the bottom of the list.

Looking at the sequences, here's the files opened individually, lowest numbered to highest, viewing in the Finder sorted by date opened.

Selecting All and opening all at once in Preview it kept that order except for "01 Alias.png" which landed 3rd from the bottom.

I could manually move it to the top within Preview, but I found no way to keep the oldest opened file to stay at the top when opened.

Opening them first individually in reverse order yielded similar results.

Before opening in Preview.

The order they appeared opening all at once in Preview.

Again, within Preview, I can manually move "18" to the top as there is only one out of order, but still…"

I'm not seeing any setting anywhere that changes that open order.

ivan

Thank you VikingOSX,

You are correct. It will open in the sort order you select in list view. Looks like I needed more testing! :-)

I still see the weirdness where the 1st item is moved down if I open them with drag and drop onto the Preview Dock icon, but Right-Click and open with Preview works correctly every time.

Thanks again,

ivan