How do I change the sort order on an iPod Shuffle?

March 6, 2009 1:17 PM

How do I change the default sort options on an iPod Touch?

In iTunes, I always use the "albums by artist" sort order, so DJ mixes will appear together as an album by whoever compiled them (in the Album Artist field) and compilations show up as "Various Artists". I've noticed that this is the default for the iPod Touch's CoverFlow view, but the list view (which I would prefer to use, since it's less prone to crashing during rapid scrolling) only offers albums in alphabetical order by title and a list of EVERY artist on the ipod, not just ones that appear in Album Artist fields, making the "by arist" option totally useless.

Another sorting issue I'm having: CoverFlow puts everything in the correct order, except for the compilations I have tagged as Various Artists, which are in semi-random order. For example, right now the first five are Shock City Shockers, Dirty Diamonds II, Dirty Diamonds, Dirty Edits vol. 1, and The Warriors soundtrack. This is a minor issue, but it's really annoying and I'd like to figure out a solution if possible.

posted by Merzbau to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Have you played around with the sort fields in iTunes? I think they will do what you want.
posted by raf at 2:47 PM on March 6

I've had a first gen iPod touch for a about eight months now. (actually I'm typing on it right now.) As far as I know there's no way to do what you want, but I could be missing something. If you find out anything on another site, please do come back here and let me know!
posted by miraimatt at 1:08 AM on March 7

(Also: you wrote "iPod shuffle" in the title by accident.)
posted by miraimatt at 1:11 AM on March 7

Agh, so I did. So used to dealing with my Shuffle... I'll let you know if I figure it out, miraimatt.
posted by Merzbau at 11:09 PM on March 7