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It started with iPad and iPod-- suddenly I couldn't sort all songs a to z. They were sorted by group, then by song name. Now in iTunes its the same problem. How do I sort by song name only?
First click View > As List. Then click the word Name at the top of the Name column.
I'm pretty sure I've done that to no avail. I'll try again tomorrow and maybe even record the event on video. Of course with any luck I was just tired and doing it wrong last time!
But this still leaves the problem of the devices. Am I wrong in thinking the latest version of software for the iPod and iPad prevent complete alphabetical listings of the songs? Have I possibly screwed up the indexing data somehow?
LZ, Give it a try. I have never seen it not work.
Also, TBOMK, nothing on the iDevice affects sorting on the mother ship (iTunes).
Here see for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhmPLpgQ5uw
You need to be in itunes under library where is says song, arrow point up wil put them in alphatecial order same as fi you wanted artists in alphabetical order.
LZ, OK, thanks, now I have seen it with my own eyes.
I have not seen that behavior before. What happens if you sort on a few other columns, and then come back to Name?
You can play around with the other categories. But which ever is pointing up is alphabetical.
@ed2345 it's the same problem. Check this out. I went into "view options" and checked to display a column called "sort name". It shows a very screwed up story! Does this reveal the problem? Is there something I can do to repair this, without having to manually edit thousands of songs?
LZ, Well that sheds some light on the mystery.
Any idea how the Sort Name filed got populated with Artist-Name? Since the Sort Name, if populated, overrides the Name in sorting, that apparently explains what you are seeing.
iTunes lets you edit the Sort Name for individual tracks, but not for multiple tracks at a time. Perhaps there is a tagging program that can handle it.
Okay so that is the cause. Man, finding a program has been a huge disappointment:
There is a program called "Rinse" that everyone says to avoid.
"TuneUp" plugin is incompatible with iTunes 10.4 which is what is installed on this machine.
And most others either don't seem to do this, or else they aren't compatible with latest iTunes or Windows 7.
*sigh*
Any reommendations, anyone? Not looking forward to manually editing 10,000 songs!
And what is the best way to manually edit "sort name" field anyway. Can i just blank them all out?
Yes you can just blank them all out. Select a bunch of tracks, get info. and place a tick against the empty sort name box on the sorting tab to erase all the current data in those fields. Oops, forgot it doesn't quite work like that, however I wrote a script called ClearSortName which will do the trick for you.
For tips on useful changes you can make that might help get your library in shape see http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp
tt2
You can select a bunch of tracks, get info. and place a tick against the empty sort name box to erase all the current data in those fields.
Steve, Were you able to do this? On my machine (running iTunes 10.3), the Sorting tab for multiple songs does not include Sort Name.
Yep, I spotted my mistake too... 🙂
tt2
Luckily your script will solve the problem!
Holy crap I'll try it!!!
How can I sort songs alphabetically in iTunes?
