How to sort a collection by date in MongoDB?

Just a slight modification to @JohnnyHK answer

collection.find().sort({datefield: -1}, function(err, cursor){...});

In many use cases we wish to have latest records to be returned (like for latest updates / inserts).

Sorting by date doesn't require anything special. Just sort by the desired date field of the collection.

Updated for the 1.4.28 node.js native driver, you can sort ascending on datefield using any of the following ways:

collection.find().sort({datefield: 1}).toArray(function(err, docs) {...});
collection.find().sort('datefield', 1).toArray(function(err, docs) {...});
collection.find().sort([['datefield', 1]]).toArray(function(err, docs) {...});
collection.find({}, {sort: {datefield: 1}}).toArray(function(err, docs) {...});
collection.find({}, {sort: [['datefield', 1]]}).toArray(function(err, docs) {...});

'asc' or 'ascending' can also be used in place of the 1.

To sort descending, use 'desc', 'descending', or -1 in place of the 1.

Sushant Gupta's answers are a tad bit outdated and don't work anymore.

The following snippet should be like this now :

collection.find({}, {"sort" : ['datefield', 'asc']} ).toArray(function(err,docs) {});

This worked for me:

collection.find({}, {"sort" : [['datefield', 'asc']]}, function (err, docs) { ... });

Using Node.js, Express.js, and Monk

Additional Square [ ] Bracket is required for sorting parameter to work.

collection.find({}, {"sort" : [['datefield', 'asc']]} ).toArray(function(err,docs) {});

if your date format is like this : 14/02/1989 ----> you may find some problems

you need to use ISOdate like this :

var start_date = new Date(2012, 07, x, x, x); 

-----> the result ------>ISODate("2012-07-14T08:14:00.201Z")

now just use the query like this :

 collection.find( { query : query ,$orderby :{start_date : -1}} ,function (err, cursor) {...}

that's it :)