Move records in the same table

There are numerous sorting and grouping options available in grid view, but none that just let you move records around randomly. Airtable expects you to have a reason that Record 101 should move to the #43 spot (it’s there in a date order, or alpha, or something). 

An easy way to get around this would be to create a number field, input the record order you want 1-whatever, and then sort by that number field. 

Hey ​@ATI909,

Did you try manual sorting?
If you do not have any sorting config set up, then you should be able to manually drag and drop your records. For further context, are you working from the data layer or from an interface? I guess grid = data, right?

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation 
YouTube Channel 

As ​@Mike_AutomaticN  said, you can custom order records using Manual sort. This option is only available in Interfaces, not in the data layer. If you really need to see data in a specific order, you’ll have to create an Interface for it.

For instructions on setting up manual sort in an Interface, you can check out this article.

Taha, Views And Bases

Hey ​@Taha-Jiruwala!

This is def possible to achieve on the data layer :D 

One hovering on a record, this little symbol will be shown:

 

If you click on it and drag the record, you’ll be able to re-order!!

 

Hope this helps!

​​​​​​​Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation 
YouTube Channel​​​​​​​

Hi,

You should understand that the table is not a spreadsheet, it’s “an unsorted box of records”. If you sort them by any field and then disable sorting, they will stay in the same order, and all those “sorts/unsorts” are just a property of the current view - it’s like a pair of glasses through which you are looking at the same untouched box of records. The records don’t care about all these sortings (and they “do not know about each other”, so you can’t count running totals etc. without linking) until you do any edit/delete/create operations.
So you can’t return the previous ‘unsorted’ order. You can only try to sort them by Creation Time, but it’s not guaranteed, especially if you created them with bulk operations.

!! If you are not sure you are doing, do a snapshot before all those operations. 
a) To set the initial order - create an Autonumber field. It will match the current Grid sorting. Then turn it into a usual Number (set Integer in presets) to make it editable. Then just set record number 101 as 43 (do whatever you want with the original 43 - delete it, set it as 42.5 etc.). Then enable sort by autonumber, then disable sort (or not) - they will stay sorted, but new records added later will not follow the sort order.
b) If you just don’t want to enable any kind of sorting - hide all computed/non-editable fields. Select record 101, press Ctrl+X, move the cursor to record 43, click on the primary cell, press Ctrl+V. Don't change order and visibility of fields between cut(copy) and paste. If something goes wrong, press Ctrl+Z before it’s too late. (but watch out, Ctrl+Z is unreliable sometimes)

It sort of depends on what you mean by “move”, but assuming you want to overwrite record 43 with the contents of record 101and not just change the sort order. The latter you can do using some of the suggestions above. If it is the slightly more complicated case, then I think you want to have an automation that triggers on whatever the condition is to “move” the record. Should be a simple “update record” action to replace the record content. The trickier part is removing that original record, but you can do that within the same automation using a fairly simple “run script” action. More on the latter here: