How to Fold Socks and Organize Them in a Drawer

How to organize socks in a drawer

If your sock drawer is looking out of control, it might be time to organize your socks. Get rid of mismatched pairs, socks with holes, or socks you simply no longer wear. Once you determine a sock folding technique that works well for you, folding and organizing socks in a drawer should be no problem! Learn how to fold socks in a way that suits your storage solution.

How to Declutter Your Sock Drawer

Learn how to organize a sock drawer

Before we talk about folding and organizing we have to declutter your current sock collection. Pull everything out of your drawer and create a recycle and donate pile for the following:

RECYCLE: (textile recycling tips)

  • Socks missing a matching pair
  • Socks with holes or deep stains that are beyond repair

DONATE:

  • Lightly used or never used socks you don’t plan on wearing again

How to Organize Your Sock Drawer

After eliminating the socks you will no longer wear, it’s time to organize the remaining socks in your drawer. 

First, you need to sort your socks by style, then by color. So designate an area for your ankle socks, work socks, other patterned socks, winter socks, etc.

You might want to implement different folding techniques for different sock styles (I do!). Here are your best options:

How to Fold Socks

How to fold socks and store them in a drawer

Folding is my favorite method for storing ankle socks. Ankle socks are too small to roll, and they absolutely stretch out when you fold one inside of the other (like the rollover technique pictured later in this post). The last thing you want is a stretched out ankle sock that keeps slipping below your heel! With that said, you can certainly fold any type of sock, here’s how you do it.

  • Place one sock on top of the other. You can either flatten the heel, or flatten along the heel. This is a stylistic preference – flattened heels look tidier when file folded, but either method works completely fine.
  • Fold in half, then stack vertically in your drawer.

How to Roll Socks

How to organize your socks by rolling

Longer socks and tights are great candidates for sock rolling. Whether you roll or fold your longer socks is entirely up to you, I think rolling is a bit faster for me so I stick with that method. 

  • Lay one sock on top of the other
  • Roll them up – I like starting at the toe and rolling to the ankle
  • Place them in your drawer, rolled side up!

Sock Rollover Method

How to fold and organize your socks

This is the classic “folding the ankle of one sock over the other” method of sock folding. Sock folding purists argue that this method will stretch out the ankles of your socks – and they’re right! This is why I recommend folding or rolling adult socks.

With that said, if you have tiny kids with lots of tiny socks… this is the way to go. Tiny socks are too small to properly file fold, and forget about trying to roll them. 

Unless you want to hunt for a matching sock each time you dress your little one, relax and just stretch one sock over the other. Kids grow so quickly that by the time a sock gets remotely stretched out, they’ve likely grown into the next sock size anyway! 

Here’s how I do it:

  • Place two socks together holding them by the ankle. 
  • Fold one ankle over the other sock in its entirety.
  • Toss into a drawer or sock basket. 
  • I separate ankle socks and longer socks in two small baskets in my son’s sock drawer so I know where to grab when he’s wearing shorts vs. pants.

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