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How to sort dates from oldest to newest in Excel?

Author Siluvia Last modified

Sorting dates is a common requirement in data management tasks, such as organizing timelines, keeping records in chronological order, or analyzing historical information. Sometimes, importing data from different sources can lead to inconsistent date formats, making sorting less straightforward. Excel provides several practical methods to sort date data effectively, regardless of data volume or complexity. This article will guide you through several solutions to sort dates from oldest to newest, help you standardize the date format, and introduce formula and VBA-based approaches for special scenarios.

Sort dates from oldest to newest in Excel

You can quickly sort a date list from oldest to newest or newest to oldest by using Excel's built-in sorting feature, which works best when dates are consistently formatted as date values.

1. Select the list of dates you wish to sort. If your table contains adjacent columns that should stay together, make sure to select all relevant data to maintain row integrity.

2. Navigate to the Data tab on the Excel ribbon, then click Sort Oldest to Newest. See screenshot:

A screenshot showing the 'Oldest to Newest' button in Excel's Data tab

The selected date column will now be sorted from the earliest date to the most recent one, organizing your data chronologically.

Tips:

1. To sort dates in the opposite direction (from newest to oldest), click the Newest to Oldest A screenshot of the 'Newest to Oldest' button button in the Data tab.

2. If your data contains dates in different formats (such as “mm/dd/yyyy” and “mm-dd-yyyy”), Excel might not recognize some entries as real dates, resulting in incorrect sort order. In this situation, it is highly recommended to standardize all date entries to a uniform format before sorting.

To quickly convert various date formats to a standard date recognized by Excel, you can use the Convert to Date utility from Kutools for Excel:

1). Select the date list to process. Then, go to the Kutools tab, click Content > Convert to Date. See screenshot:

A screenshot showing the Convert to Date feature in Kutools tab in Excel

2). All entries in the selected date list will be converted to the standard mm/dd/yyyy date format. At this point, you can proceed to sort as needed, and Excel will recognize all values correctly as dates.

A screenshot showing the converted date list to mm/dd/yyyy format

Practical tip: If invalid date texts remain after conversion, check for hidden spaces, use TRIM() to clean text entries, or ensure regional date settings match your intended format.

Limitation: The built-in sort function will not automatically update if source dates are later changed. Consider using dynamic table ranges if your data updates frequently.

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