Python MongoDB - Sort

Last Updated : 04 Jul, 2025

In MongoDB, sorting allows you to arrange documents in a specific order based on one or more fields. Using PyMongo in Python, you can apply the sort() method on a query result to retrieve documents in ascending or descending order. This is helpful when you want results ranked by specific fields.

Syntax

collection.find().sort(field, direction)

Parameter:

field (str): name of the field to sort
direction (int): sorting direction, use: 1 for ascending order and -1 for descending order

Let's explore some Examples to understand it.

Sample Collection used in this article:

sort-database — Collection used for Example

Example 1:

This Example sorts documents in the names collection by the "id" field in ascending order using PyMongo.

Python

import pymongo client = pymongo.MongoClient('localhost', 27017) db = client["GFG"] collection = db["names"] # Sort documents by 'id' in ascending order sorted_docs = collection.find().sort("id", 1) # Print sorted documents for doc in sorted_docs: print(doc)

Output

Explanation: find().sort("id", 1) retrieves all documents from the "names" collection and sorts them in ascending order by the "id" field.

Example 2:

This code retrieves documents from the names collection sorting them by the "name" field in descending order using PyMongo.

Python

import pymongo my_client = pymongo.MongoClient('localhost', 27017) mydb = my_client["gfg"] mynew = mydb["names"] # Sort documents by 'name' in descending order mydoc = mynew.find().sort("name", -1) # Print the sorted documents for x in mydoc: print(x)

Output :

Explanation: find().sort("name", -1) retrieves all documents from the "names" collection and sorts them in descending order by the "name" field.