Sorting by artist, then name.

Is there any way to bypass iTunes's sorting of songs by album? I would very much like to sort my tracks alphabetically in order of artist, and then by name of the song.
For example:
Amorphouse - Sidestepper
Basement Jaxx - Oh My Gosh
Basement Jaxx - Red Alert
Radiohead - Up on the Ladder
I've only seen it able to be sorted either by song title in general (disregarding the artist) or sorting it by the artist.

iTunes doesn't provide a way of specifying two sort levels. Once you select a column such as artist, you have to accept the default after that.
You get some extra options in the album column. Clicking on album toggles between album, album by artist and album by year.
The nearest you can get is to use the browse window to selct an artist and then sort by track name within that.

Similar Messages

ITunes 11 [Songs view] - Sort on artist, then year

I just downloaded iTunes 11 and there seem to be some features missing compared to iTunes 10. One of the most important issues is that in the "Songs" view, I cannot seem to sort on (1) Artist and (2) Album year. It seems that iTunes is automatically sorting as (1) Artist, (2) Album name alphabetically. For example, for Norah Jones, first the album Little Broken Hearts (2012) is displayed, and after that the album Not Too Late (2007). Does anyone know if this can still be done in iTunes 11 or is the feature missing completely? Interestingly enough, in the "Albums" view, there is an option to sort by Artist, then Year (view --> view options).
Another issue, which I believe has been adressed in other topics as well, is the complete missing of albumart in the "Songs" view. Consequently, this was also the place in iTunes 10 where you could choose to sort on Arist/Year. I really hope that Apple puts this feature back in iTunes 11 as soon as possible.

Yep, I'm seeing the same thing. Just downloaded iTunes 11 and now I can't sort albums by year in the "Artists" view. I used to prefix all my album mp3 tag names with the year number to work around this, but removed it when Apple added the Artist/Year sort. Now it's gone. Yay!
A note: you can use the free mp3tag.de software to insert your year tag into your album titles using regular expressions. If there doesn't seem to be any obvious solution to sorting by Artist/Album/Year in the next couple days, then I'll post here with some tips if anyone is interested.

With IOS 7, the coverflow screen sorts strictly by album title. How do I get sorting by artist then by title, the way it was in IOS 6 and earlier?

There seems to be no way in IOS 7 to see a list of the album titles for an artist. The "coverflow" screen sorts just by album title, without regard for Artist, where in IOS 6 and before it sorted by artist (primary key) and then album title (secondary key).
Also, in IOS 6 and before, under the Artist search, selecting an Artist gave you a list of the album titles for that artist, then you could select the album you were interested in (or wanted to shuffle play). But in IOS 7, the Artist search gives you a list of ALLsongs for that Artist. There is no overview list of just album titles, and no way to shuffle just one album from that screen. Both IOS 6 and 7 allow one to shuffle all songs for the Artist.
How do I get back the Artist/Abums sorting or grouping, either ijn Coverflow or in the Artist search?
Thanks,
Rainer in Waltham

The large text size makes your post almost impossible to read.
Excessive use of bold or capitals (also) makes posts difficult to read.
You can drag most of the column headings left or right, or right-click on the header to turn columns on or off.
Once you've used File > Display Duplicates or Shift > File > Display Exact Duplicates you can use File > Display All or the Display All button at the bottom of the list to restore the display.
For general advice on organising your library see this article on Grouping tracks into albums.
tt2

Sorting albums by artist then year

I have a bunch of albums imported into my itunes but I have problems sorting them the way I want it.
I want it to be sorted first by artist then by year so I have all the albums from 1 artist together in the order they was released
Now itunes sort by artist then album name
How is that changed?

Click on the Album column header. It will change to Album by Artist, then Album by Year.
This will sort all the songs by Artist and then Year.

Song name category column stuck on the left. I want artist's name first.

Hello. Somehow my default view in iTunes (the latest version) has come up with the song name on the very left, rather than artist. I want to sort by Artist, then songname, etc. I can't drag the songname column away from the first position or drag a category in front of it. I've tried deleting all of the columns, but songname can't be deleted. I've tried selecting a different category, but it stacks up new categoryt names to the right. I can reposition those categories. This is driving me crazy. Can anyone help? Thanks.
Windows XP Pro

That is so lame. I read in another thread that the reason the Name field can't be moved is that it's the database index field. Well, the index field's position doesn't matter in a 'normal' database. You can format a report any way you like, regardless whether you're reporting the index field. What a crock.
Apple needs to fix this, pronto. Thought I had a buddy about to switch to iTunes (and ultimately a Mac) but this one thing ****** him off so much he'll probably never look at another Apple product. And he's right - that is just plain ignorant. Never thought I'd see the day a PC app made more sense than an Apple one. I'm very disillusioned.

ITunes 11 - How do you Sort by Genre then Artist? Other General Customizations

Hello,
Maybe somebody else knows how to do this, if so please post it. I am really disappointed in iTunes ever since version 10 I think, where they majorly revamped the whole look for it. No, I am not one of those people who are opposed to change and are slow to adapt when changes are made to applications either. I just feel these new changes majorly suck.
So I am using version 11, the latest one. Apple has made it so uncustomizable that it is ridiculous. Correct me if I am wrong in saying this, that you can’t do any of this stuff anymore. When I open iTunes I like to be able to select Genres and then have the music within the Genre sorted by artist. I don’t see how you can do this anymore. Now when you click on Genre there is no longer an option to sort anything. Everything is sorted by CD Name and you aren’t allowed to sort it any other way. Seriously, who really knows the name of every CD they own, especially when you have several 100 CDs?
So if I want to view my music by artist I have to select Artists, which that lists all artists (regardless of genre). I hate this because then it is harder to find the exact artist you are looking for because the list is that much longer and you are scrolling through a ton more artists just to get to the one you are looking for. Yes, I already know there is a search library feature. I also like viewing the artist by Genre because it is easier to determine if the newly added CD was placed in the correct Genre. I know some people just add music and don’t care where it is placed or how it is organized, but I like to keep it all organized. I even have it organized on my computer by folders Genres, folders Artists, and then folders CDs.
This is the same for viewing your Playlists. You used to be able to select your playlists and then view a specific genre within that playlist. From there I could sort the playlist however I wanted, like by artists, and then CD. I have several playlists that have more than one genre in it. With this new version you can’t view your playlist by genre, you can only view all of the songs within the playlist.
I also liked in the old version how you could view the number of songs in each genre. Well, you can still do this once you click on the genre, but there isn’t an overview anymore. Like in the old version it would list all the genres and then in a caption underneath each genre it would show how many songs and different artists are in each genre. There was no need to go into each individual genre to view this information. You could also view the number of songs in each genre within each playlist as well. The playlist thing has been removed altogether. Now you can only view how many songs are in the playlist, regardless of genre.
The new version does have a few tiny benefits, like easily being able to see what playlist(s) a particular song is in by right clicking on a song and then selecting Show in Playlists. I however, don’t feel the tiny tweaks outweigh the view customizable benefits of previous versions. These new tweaks could have easily been added to the older versions without disabling the customizable view settings.

Max OSX 10.6.8, iTunes 11.1
I had a similar problem: I wanted to synch my playlist to my iphone. I like to have my playlist sorted by genre. But under each genre, albums are not sorted by the track numbers. This is a problem, especially when I am listening to club mixes when the DJ smoothly transitions from 1 track sequentially to the next one. Under the properties of each audio file, the Track Numbers and Disc Numbers are already there.
My perfect solution was to turn On Sorting - Sort Album under View>Show View Options. Then, select all the songs in that album (Shift click, Cmd click, etc) , and Edit multiple item information (Cmd I). You will see Info-Video-Sorting-Options buttons. Click on Sorting. Then, under Sort Album, Enter the name of the album. Then OK.
You should now have the playlist sorted by Genre, then each album individually sorted by track numbers. On your playlist you should see, if you scroll right, the column added called "Sort Album".
Hope this helps.

Problem sorting by artist name

itunes 9 sort by artist is not consistent (e.g Alberta Hunter appears before Harry Allen). Why? And is this fixable?

Because it sorts by the name in the artist column.
Alberta comes before Harry.
If you want *Harry Allen* filed under A and *Alberta Hunter* under H then put the names in the *Sort Artist* column as *Allen, Harry* and *Hunter, Alberta*.

Is there a way to sort in iTunes 1st by artist then year?

Right now when I sort by artist the albums or songs go into alphabetical order. When this happens I get new albums or songs mixed with old ones. I want my permanent sorting to be in “artist” order then inside each artist the sort to be by “year”. Then I would like this same set up to load to my iPod.
This seems simple but I can't fine how to do this. Can anyone tell me how to do this if it is possible?
HP Windows XP
HP Windows XP
HP Windows XP

Sorry, but it's not possible.
B-rock

Problem Sorting on Artist Name with numbers in title

I just upgraded to iTunes 7.7 and when I sort by artist, all the artists with numbers in their name (3 doors down, 10,000 Maniacs) appear after the "Z's" at the very end of my library, I want them before the "A's" as the first block of songs in my library, can't firgure out how to do that, it was always that way in my previous iTune versions, but with the upgrade it changed by itself
Can anyone help, I am sure this should be easy as I never had to do anything before to get this sorting behavior

This was changed in version 7.3.
See this -> iTunes 7.3: Changes in music sort order

How do I sort by artist name on I tunes

how do I sort by artist name on I tunes

Sorry Chris - that doesn't work unless you want the albums all listed. What I found was so simple. In the view catagoryclick on "Show View Options" That brings up a whole table of things. At the top it says sort by and if you click on the arrow it brings up however you want it sorted - in my case by artist instead of by song.
Thanks anyway

ITunes Won't Sort Some Artists By Last Name

I have recently decided to sort my artists by last name on my Macbook, using "Sort Artist" and "Sort Album Artist" in the sorting columns of iTunes. This has worked fine for all artists, except two of them. For instance, my Brian Wilson collection will not move and remains sorted by B instead of W. The only way I can move it to W is if I change the "Album Artist" to a different name in the info section. So, if I changed it to, say, "Brian Wilson 2" or some variation, it moves. But when I change it back to Brian Wilson, it keeps reverting to sorting by first name. Of course, this is unpractical. I deleted and reimported my entire Wilson collection, and it still didn't make a difference.
Strangely, on my iMac, I do not have this problem and everything sorts perfectly. I am an iTunes Match subscriber and thought perhaps that was messing with things, but the problem still persists with it off. So if there's any suggestions to what's going on, that'd be great.
Thanks!

I have this problem too, and I get around it by adding a middle name - so Franz Schubert became Franz Peter Schubert
It's not ideal, but there is not fix that I can find.

Sorting by ARTIST not the same in iPod and iTunes?

In iTunes/Windows, I insert a CD consisting of a compilation by various people as ARTIST='Various artists' and ALBUM ARTIST='whatever-singer'. Sorting by ARTIST shows the CD under the group 'Various artists', with each song corresponding to 'whatever-singer'. The iTunes library creates a folder for 'Various artists' with the CD name and all the songs inside.
Transfering to the iPod and selecting ARTIST, lists instead all the 'whatever-singer' as separate items, rather than the 'Various artists' name used in iTunes.
Any suggestion to make the iPod terminology compatible with iTunes?. Thanks

Mark it as a compilation then. It will show up as one album, at the end of coverflow but NOT under artists, unless you have a "regular" non compilation album by the artist. Unfortunately all of your, for example, Bryan Adams music would not be together - Albums in alphabetical order, compilations at the end. Another way to work around this would be to add the guests name to the individual song titles, such as "We're In Heaven (Feat. whoever)". This involves renaming the tracks, and deleting the "Featuring" name from the artist, but the album will only show up once. This is the most annoying thing about coverflow - an album is not a compilation because it has 2 guests on it - but the ipod thinks it is. My opinion is that if I would sort it with an artists other albums in my CD collection, I should be able to do so in my ipod...without creating 4 covers because of guests on an album. I really hope this is addressed in the future!

Sorting of Artists in iTunes for Mac

Why won't iTunes 12.1 will not sort my latest purchased downloaded songs with the rest of the songs by that Artist?
Today i downloaded two songs by The Kingston Trio that I didn't have, after they appeared in My music Library, I did a sort-by-artist to get all of their songs together , but the new songs would join the rest. I tried renaming ALL of their songs' Artist name, then back again to "The Kingston Trio" and they still won't sort to one group. Alphabetically, all of the songs except the two new ones appear in the list of artist starting with letter "K", the two new ones appear in the list of artists starting with the letter "T , between Terry Stafford and Theme. Even if I change the artist name to "Kingston Trio" those two song don't move when I do another sort. Weird!
Any Ideas.??

I also have a problem which I just noticed with iTunes 12.1.0.50 which I took a screen snapshot of and if I could get an email address and a reference # to track it, the problem is immediately apparent. Its not urgent so if you could send me an email back:
I am listing my songs by Album by Artist and in between
* one album (August & Everything After) by one artist (Counting Crows) and
* another album (Recovering The Satellites) by the same artist (Counting Crows),
I find a track from an entirely different album (Coral Fang) by another entirely different artist (The Distillers).
What's going on?
Charles-A. Rovira
email: [email protected]

How do I sort an artist's songs alphabetically in iTunes store?

Until this week, I could go into the iTunes store, select an artist, and click on "Name" to sort that artist's songs alphabetically. With the new software upgrade, clicking on "Name" does nothing. How do we now sort an artist's songs alphabetically in the iTunes store?

lulz, I feel like I'm just picking the ones that have this question and like, pasting my reply Hope this helps!
Here is a step by step picture tutorial :
Step 1-Up thar in the top right corner, type in what artist you want (1). Or you can click "Music" at the top black bar, and then when scroll down to whatever genre you want (2).
1.
2.
Step 2-If you did the genre version, on the right sidebar area, there should be a "Top songs", click that, and there, you can sort however you want. It works like normal. Idk why.
If you searched artist, however, you can't just click "songs" or "see all" at the songs slidey area (really, anything you see at the top right side bar, don't click it, it won't let you sort because it's a search result list. IDK why Apple did this, but it did )
You have to click the artist's name, under the top part of the right sidebar, where it says "Artists and More" (SEE BELOW)
Once you click that, the artist page pops up:
There, click "see all" for songs:
And then you can sort.
I hope that helped!
LOL sorry, I just realized that I changed artists halfway. haha....^.^"

Keep album stacked together by album artist, in a library sorted by artist?

I have my iTunes library sorted after “Artist”. Which gives me nothing but trouble with collections or collaborations.
So what I would like to do is have iTunes to ignore the default or general sorting by “Artist”. And instead sort only this album by “Album Artist”.
I have 12 songs with the same album title, same genre, same album artist but with different song names and artist.
But regardless of how I try to tell iTunes that it has to sort this one by album artist and not the artist, it never does.
I have tried at select all the 12 songs, get info. Write the same Albums Artist, the same Album Title and leave the Artist blank. And I choose sort by Album Artist and under option I choose part of a collection.
But this isn’t working for me, As soon I go back to my library, which sorted by Artist. The albums is still spread all over the place.
HOW DO I KEEP THESE 12 SONGS STACKED TOGETHER, without having to chance the Artist to Various Artists and write each individual artist to the song title?
Which in my opinion is the wrong and oldschool approach.

Yes, I have just checked and rechecked it again. I have set an Album Artist value for each songs and the album in general. And even if i add the Album by Artist to my list view and sort after that. It still acts up. It can't for some reason keep the correct collections together, eventhough they are set as a collection in options.
But i don't really, keeping collections together didn't used to be a problem before. But i will keep trying some different things. But it's pretty annoying, that iTunes has such trouble with this.
I really have a pretty tighty library, everything is named and set up correctly (haha, or apparently not).
But thanks for the help.

Sorting by artist, then name.

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