Sort Subscriptions And Folders In Google Reader Using Drag And Drop

Google Reader hands down is one of the best RSS news reader around. Adding and managing subscriptions from web sites is easy and the interface makes organizing feeds into different folders (labels) a simple task.

But one feature, that may fool you in to thinking is missing, is the capability to sort and re-order your subscriptions in the sidebar.

I have to admit, I was looking around everywhere in the Manage subscriptions settings and couldn't find a way to sort my subscriptions in the sidebar to the way I wanted them to appear.

By accident, I had clicked on a subscription while holding down the left mouse button and noticed I could drag the subscription any where, including to different folders and just drop it any where.

AHHH! I finally stumbled across the feature I was looking for. Now you can easily sort and order the subscriptions any way you want.

You can drag and drop in to different folders, or drop the subscription outside the folder hierarchy (off the root of the sidebar) by dropping on top of it's current folder. And once you move an item, it will automatically change itself to the new folder label and un-check the old label setting.

Folders can also be re-order as well, using drag and drop, although they cannot be dropped into another folder.

I still would like to see a better way to sort folders and subscriptions, such as by alphabetical order (which occurs by default but not after you re-sort using drg and drop). But hey, this new found way of sorting will hold me off until then! 😉