# Plex sorting artist by LASTNAME **URL:** \ **Category:** General Discussions\ **Tags:** server-windows\ **Created:** [January 16, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102 "2020-01-16T22:13:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Explorer\_200](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/explorer_200/32/295935_2.png) [@Explorer\_200](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Explorer_200)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/1 "2020-01-16T22:13:23Z")
I ran my whole music collection through Picard which did an excellent job tagging my files, but now Plex is using the “album sort artist” tag from Picard to sort all my music artists by last name. This is driving me cray. I would much rather have it sort by first name. How do I fix this in Plex? Do I have to remove all those tags and re-import? Is there a way to make Plex ignore the “Artist sort order” tag? ---
**Author:** ![tom80H](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/tom80h/32/19753_2.png) [@tom80H](https://forums.plex.tv/u/tom80H)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 10:17pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/2 "2020-01-16T22:17:38Z")
Considering Plex doesn’t distinguish between first and last name, there’s no way it can reverse this for you. If you added that sort title via Picard, you’ll need to check there if it can also re-tag those files with a first name / last name schema (vs. last name / first name) No option to ignore the sort name if you’re sorting by title / name. ---
**Author:** ![Explorer\_200](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/explorer_200/32/295935_2.png) [@Explorer\_200](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Explorer_200)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 10:20pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/3 "2020-01-16T22:20:13Z")
Well Plex could choose to ignore that tag and just use the “artist” field. There could be a little tick box. This is an issue now that plex has adopted musicbrainz tagging schemes. ---
**Author:** ![tom80H](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/tom80h/32/19753_2.png) [@tom80H](https://forums.plex.tv/u/tom80H)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 10:25pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/4 "2020-01-16T22:25:26Z")
You can: 1. select all artists (select the first, click Shift, select the last) 2. click `Edit` 3. clear `Sort Artist` (the field should show `MIXED`) 4. click `Save Changes` # This field exists particularly to overwrite the `Artist Name` for sorting purposes… if you don’t want the artists to be sorted differently, you should consider not adding a tag for that. ---
**Author:** ![Explorer\_200](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/explorer_200/32/295935_2.png) [@Explorer\_200](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Explorer_200)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 10:57pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/5 "2020-01-16T22:57:49Z")
Thanks. I tried that but it was greyed out ---
**Author:** ![tom80H](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/tom80h/32/19753_2.png) [@tom80H](https://forums.plex.tv/u/tom80H)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 11:00pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/6 "2020-01-16T23:00:26Z")
What is greyed out? The dialog should look like this – just overwrite (or clear) the placeholder that says `MIXED` ![Bildschirmfoto 2020-01-16 um 23.59.14](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/e/0/e063c75aa3efe5435285a43f7aa5732a09126569.png) ---
**Author:** ![beckfield](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/beckfield/32/7227_2.png) [@beckfield](https://forums.plex.tv/u/beckfield)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 11:09pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/7 "2020-01-16T23:09:31Z")
You can’t clear the ‘Mixed’ text. All you can do is overwrite it to something else. I should say, if you clear the ‘MIXED’ text by typing a letter, then erasing it, it doesn’t change the tag when you save it. @Explorer_200 I think your only recourse is to go back into Picard, or some other tag editor, and remove the artistsort tags that way. ---
**Author:** ![tom80H](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/tom80h/32/19753_2.png) [@tom80H](https://forums.plex.tv/u/tom80H)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 11:16pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/8 "2020-01-16T23:16:41Z")
You’re right. However… you can overwrite `MIXED` with the same value for all the artists (e.g. `Hello World`). When you then re-edit the artists, you can clear the field (just tested with a test library on my server) ---
**Author:** ![beckfield](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/beckfield/32/7227_2.png) [@beckfield](https://forums.plex.tv/u/beckfield)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 11:19pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/9 "2020-01-16T23:19:33Z")
Yeah, that would work. Make sure you lock the field, though, or the next metadata refresh will put it back. And, with the ongoing issue of the lock not always preventing overwrites, I think the most reliable method is to clear the tag in the files themselves. ---
**Author:** ![leelynds](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/leelynds/32/82049_2.png) [@leelynds](https://forums.plex.tv/u/leelynds)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 11:32pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/10 "2020-01-16T23:32:04Z")
I was lucky enough to spot the sorting order issue cause by Picard soon enough, it was easy to fix. You can set some options in Picard in the “Scripting” section. I created 2 scripts, the first one: ```auto $set(artistsort,%artist%) $set(albumartistsort,%albumartist%) ``` which sets the sorting order to the Album Artist, which is usually FirstName\_LastName. That worked well, until I realized that it would set the sorting in Plex to “The Beatles” instead of just “Beatles”. So I disabled that script, and created a new one, that removes the sort tags downloaded from MusicBrainz before they are written to the file. Seems to work properly (for now 🤔 ) ```auto $delete(artistsort) $delete(albumartistsort) ``` Try them and see which one works best for you. ---
**Author:** ![Explorer\_200](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/explorer_200/32/295935_2.png) [@Explorer\_200](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Explorer_200)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2020, 12:47am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/11 "2020-01-17T00:47:39Z")
> [@leelynds](#): > > $delete(artistsort) $delete(albumartistsort) Thanks, This looks like the best answer for now! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 12:47am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-sorting-artist-by-lastname/528102/12 "2020-04-16T00:47:56Z")
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