Stereo USB Sorter

Windows sorts files and folders before displaying them, based on user-defined criteria, but smaller operating systems, such as those embedded into MP3 players, simply show them in the order in which they were copied to the drive.

Stereo USB Sorter is a small, open-source application that organizes the files on a storage drive or folder to ensure they will be sorted by name regardless of what type of device is used to access them.

Storage drives have a table listing of all files and folders, and new items are simply added to the end of it. The problem is that some embedded devices read this table as-is, without sorting it beforehand, which is not ideal.

Stereo USB Sorter gets around this issue by going through all the folders, moving them to a temporary location and then moving them back. Once every folder has been processed, items in the table listing should be in alphabetical order.

One of the advantages of using this program is that it does not require installation and can be deployed instantly. It consists of a single, small executable file, and it has no software requirements worth mentioning.

However, it has to be noted that Stereo USB Sorter lacks some advanced features that might have been useful. For instance, you cannot sort files and folders by other parameters, and you cannot specify whether directories should be mixed with the files or placed separately.

Stereo USB Sorter can be very helpful if you need to ensure files and folders will be sorted by name even when read by MP3 players and other similar devices. It offers no advanced features, however, so it might not be the right choice for all users.