The best way I can think of is to have create a Folder Action which prepends the current date to the filename when you add files to that folder. Then you can sort by name.

Depending on the files you want to present by date you could use a naming criteria like I use for documents. In Australia our date format is DD/MM/YY, so I name all of my documents in reverse as follows: 070831 - File description. So I can easily find all documents created in 2007, then by month (August) then by say (31st).

I do something similar with some of my files. In the US, our convention is MM/DD/YY. Which sucks when trying to organize by date. I had to switch it around to the way everyone else in the world does it.

You can 'touch' each file as it is put into the folder, which will set its modification time, and you can sort by that. You lose the actual modification time, though, which may not be ideal.

If your filesystem stores last access time (atime), you should be able to sort by that (possibly peeking at the file when you put it into the folder to change the atime). That's not an ideal solution either, since it's too easy to update the atime by accident, and many filesystems don't save it.

Would this Folder Action AppleScript do the trick?
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031103145431293

direct link: http://homepage.mac.com/dougeverly/folderorg.html

Don't think that will work, Carla. The OP was looking for a way to organize by the date the file is added to a folder. The modified date would work as long as the item isn't modified after it is added to the folder. After that, though, you would be out of luck.

I was thinking a solution involving Finder labels and Hazel. Hazel lets you specify [Date Added] as a criterion.* Using Finder labels, you could have a seven-layer sorting system. Depending on the number of files you have this might work fine for you. Adjust the length of your time scales in Hazel to fit your needs. For me, I'd probably have one rule for the last three days, one for the last week, month, three months, and six months. Older than that, I'd remove the color label entirely. I can't imagine I'd need a file older than six months very often. In those rare cases, I would just dog it out and Spotlight and dig for it.

HTH

*What this tells me is that Date Added is a value that is tracked but is not available as a sorting criterion in View Options. Using this info, someone might be able to develop a Finder plugin to implement the sorting, but I wouldn't be the one to start down that rabbit hole.

I like YYYY-MM-DD. It's an ISO standard, it's sortable, and it's unambiguous (useful when communicating with both UKians and North Americans).

aef

you would think this would be possible with a Smart Folder, since there’s a Date Added function in an iTunes Smart Playlist. but Date Added doesn’t show as one of the possibilities in Smart Folders.