# Plex does not sort music correctly **URL:** \ **Category:** Metadata & Adding Files\ **Tags:** library-management\ **Created:** [December 26, 2020, 1:10pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-does-not-sort-music-correctly/669998 "2020-12-26T13:10:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sieben16\_gmail\_com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@sieben16\_gmail\_com](https://forums.plex.tv/u/sieben16_gmail_com)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 1:10pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-does-not-sort-music-correctly/669998/1 "2020-12-26T13:10:38Z")
Hi there. I’m have a problem with my library for music. I have some albums where the artist name starts with “The” but the album are not sorted under T for that matter. For example: A album by “The Adverts” are under topic A for Adverts instead of T for The Adverts. It’s the same with all my albums that starts with The. How do I correct this? ---
**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 1:22pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-does-not-sort-music-correctly/669998/2 "2020-12-26T13:22:24Z")
This is the correct sorting. By default, Plex will generate a “sort title” by removing articles from the full title. Because otherwise you’d get an over-proportional part of your titles collected under the letter T. (or e.g. under D in german) You should see identical behaviour in all Plex library types, when sorted by “Title”. With music, this can be overridden by embedded meta tags. There are tags for the “artist sort” and “album sort”. If you use Musicbrainz Picard to tag your files, these tags are written by default by Picard. And Plex is reading both upon first ingestion. ---
**Author:** ![sieben16\_gmail\_com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@sieben16\_gmail\_com](https://forums.plex.tv/u/sieben16_gmail_com)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 2:08pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-does-not-sort-music-correctly/669998/3 "2020-12-26T14:08:07Z")
Ok. Thank’s for info. So I will have to sort by Maps instead of Albums to get it in correct alphabetic order. It would be better if I could make that decision my self if section T are getting to big or not. When you have 1700 album it’s easier to find a album then. ---
**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-does-not-sort-music-correctly/669998/4 "2020-12-26T14:11:54Z")
> [@sieben16\_gmail\_com](#): > > So I will have to sort by Maps instead of Albums to get it in correct alphabetic order. Sorry, not sure what you mean by that. I have almost double the album count in my lib. It is only a matter of getting used to it. If you look in other libraries and lists, you will often see things like “Adverts, The” which achieve the same sorting behavior. But for the price of atrociously looking titles. > [@sieben16\_gmail\_com](#): > > It would be better if I could make that decision my self if section T are getting to big or not. There is a hidden server preference which you can use to turn that off. However, it will only affect _newly added_ artists and albums. Which means you’ll have to scrap your library and start over. [https://support.plex.tv/articles/201105343-advanced-hidden-server-settings/](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201105343-advanced-hidden-server-settings/) `ArticleStrings` ---
**Author:** ![sieben16\_gmail\_com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@sieben16\_gmail\_com](https://forums.plex.tv/u/sieben16_gmail_com)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 4:46pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-does-not-sort-music-correctly/669998/5 "2020-12-26T16:46:15Z")
Thank you for the answer. I will take a closer look at that. ---
**Author:** ![Sprongfeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Sprongfeld](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Sprongfeld)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 11:56pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-does-not-sort-music-correctly/669998/6 "2020-12-27T23:56:52Z")
This is weird. Why would Plex not just trust that the embedded tags are correct, and sort based on that assumption? The band is called ‘The Strokes’, not ‘Strokes’; if I want to listen to ‘The Good, The Bad & the Queen’, why do I have to scroll through the ‘T’ section looking for the band, remember that Plex can’t figure out how to display band names properly, then scroll up and look through the ‘G’ section? > Blockquote > There is a hidden server preference which you can use to turn that off. However, it will only affect _newly added_ artists and albums. Which means you’ll have to scrap your library and start over. > ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/4/6/469f411093d17974bcf7fbd994866315f94f6cb1.png) [Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201105343-advanced-hidden-server-settings/) > > ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/b/4/b48c0b096e762ff871dd60414ad6b7e3537a13c2.jpg) > [Advanced, Hidden Server Settings | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201105343-advanced-hidden-server-settings/) > There are a number of advanced, hidden Plex Media Server settings, some of which are not available from the normal… > `ArticleStrings` @OttoKerner - If I’m reading this right, the “solution” to this issue (Windows-based install) is to open regedit, find the PMS entry and create a new String Value called “ArticleStrings”, then leave that blank? So that Plex doesn’t ignore any grammatical articles, and just sorts things in actual alphabetical order? Is that correct? ---
**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2020, 7:43am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-does-not-sort-music-correctly/669998/7 "2020-12-28T07:43:36Z")
> [@Sprongfeld](#): > > This is weird. Why would Plex not just trust that the embedded tags are correct, and sort based on that assumption? It is very much custom in any kind of library. Yes, even those “offline” ones. And you got that wrong. Plex is displaying the band name correctly, including the article. It only _sorts_ it by ignoring the article. You have understood the workaround correctly. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 7:43am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-does-not-sort-music-correctly/669998/8 "2021-03-28T07:43:40Z")
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