How can I sort the search results by date?

[avi aharon]

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: Confluence Search Syntax

When I search my Confluence spaces, the results are not sorted by date. In fact, I can't seem to see any logic by which the results are sorted. This calls for a manual browse of the space, something my customers find unproductive. 

[Stephen Deutsch · Accepted solution]

It used to not be possible, but thanks to the introduction of CQL, it certainly is.  However, Atlassian has not yet made it available in the user interface yet (for some reason). Here are some open feature requests:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-19493

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-5785

Here's how you can do it manually by editing the URL:

https://<my_confluence_url>/dosearchsite.action?cql=siteSearch+~+"<search_terms_here>"+order+by+<lastmodified or created>

Just fill in the blanks for the spaces with <> and it will return the results ordered by creation date or last modified date.

For Confluence Cloud users, you could just install my plugin, CQL Search, which shows an interface directly to CQL in the interface:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/cql-search/cloud/overview

If you want Atlassian to add this feature, vote on the feature requests and make sure you request that they add a filter for "order by" in the interface for the next version!

[gekr79]

@Stephen Deutsch:

Any plans to provide your cql-query plugin for the self-hosted version of confluence?

If not - do you have any easy-to-provide idea how to realise sorted search results (e.g. via user macro / third party macro)?

Thanks in advance and best regards!