iTunes Smart Playlist incorrectly sorts albums with colons

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Level 1

4 points

iTunes Smart Playlist incorrectly sorts albums with colons

I create a Smart Playlist called 'Album' because it enables viewing as a compact list rather than as (too big) tiles in iTunes Library view. I have recently discovered isolated anomalies in that some albums are listed out of their alphabetical order. (Please see attached screen shots). The only thing common to these anomalies is a colon in the 'album' field. What doesn't make sense is this problem is not replicated in most of the other albums in my library which also have a colon in the album field. I still use and want to continue using iTunes because it enables flexible creation of playlists, and because I have been familiar with its functionality for years. Thank you for your opinions.

(I'm using up-to-date iTunes version 12.13.11.1, with Windows 11 Home, on an Acer Aspire 16 AI laptop.)

Posted on Sep 27, 2026 6:03 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Z-Salem

Level 2

275 points

Sep 28, 2026 6:51 AM in response to derbui

One thing I would think to check for the anomalous albums...

Right click for song info --> Sorting Tab at top, and see what the "sort as" entry for the album name is. The first picture you have really makes me think that could be the issue, though with the second one it seems less obvious.

I've downloaded some music before and had occasional erroneous entries in the "sort as" box, and you can easily correct it if it is incorrect.

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Answer 2

derbui Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 28, 2026 3:20 PM in response to Z-Salem

I'm not sure if my iTunes has the same song info/option layout as yours, but I have provided two screenshots hoping they include the information you are referring to.

(The "EMI Presents..." album is now correctly sorted, compared with the initial screenshot, because I had to manually delete the 'Album' field, let it resort with a blank album field, then re-entered the album data and let it resort in the correct order).

View(top menu bar)\Show view options:

Right-click\Song Info\Sorting:

Thank you.

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