Submission details
Sort by 'Date Added' in Dock behaves unexpectedly
In the Dock, there is a section where you can place folders to get quick access to them. In the settings of those folders, you have (among others) the option to sort them by 'Date Added'. The behaviour of 'Date Added' is described accurately in here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3739.
However, I noticed that when I accidentally remove the Downloads folder from the dock (I might have dragged the folder when I intended to drag the file closest to the Dock) and place the folder back in the Dock, set the sort order to 'Date Added', it doesn't actually sort on the Date Added. What it does, is sort it on the Date Modified property, listing the oldest item first. This is wrong, because the Date Modified doesn't need to reflect the Date Added.
Items that are added after the sort order has been selected, are however sorted correctly (i.e. if you download a file, the Downloads in the Dock will display that file first, followed by the file with the oldest modification date).
I haven't checked if this behaviour happens for all folders, or only for the Downloads folder.
Apply the expected sort order.
Medium
Low
Not fixed
Jelle Fresen wrote on March 14, 2010, 2:31pm
I suspect that the behaviour may actually be correct, but is not what you would expect the option to do. I guess that the Date Added property is not a property stored by the filesystem (the fact that you can't display the Date Added in the Finder columns also suggests this), but by the Dock and consequently is lost when the folder is removed from the Dock. When you restore the folder to the dock, it will recreate the Date Added value for each file, with the result that all files have the same timestamp. Then it needs a tie breaker for the sorting, which happens to be the modification time.
Even though this might explain the behaviour, I still argue that it is wrong, as it is not what you would expect, especially not when you accidently removed the Downloads folder, restored it and then found out that the sort order is completely different.