I usually have the OS X Finder set to display folders and files in alphabetical order by setting the view mode to arrange the display of files and folder by name. But sometimes I switch to view by size, etc. However, when I then switch back to view the files and folders in column mode arranged by name, Finder doesn't actually display them in alphabetical order, which is annoying.
I finally got to the point where the issue was so annoying that I felt I had to find a solution. I found Brett Taylor's HOWTO: Fix file sorting in Finder‘s column view on Mac OS X Lion article which provided a means to address the issue. Though the title for his article, which acknowledges Barney-15E's post at In OS X Lion, Finder will not "Arrange By > Name" in "Column view", references OS X Lion, I found the solution worked for OS X El Capitan (10.11.6) on my MacBook Pro.
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