How do I more easily get songs in album order on my iTunes/iPod?

September 17, 2010 11:40 AM

On iTunes, is there a way to make it so that songs are arranged in the intended album-order rather than alphabetically?

I would like to be able to listen to full albums in album order on my iPod. When I go to artists - albums, some of the albums' songs are listed alphabetically. It only happens on some albums - seemingly at random, although it seems most of them are ones that I uploaded to iTunes from a CD rather than downloaded from the iTunes music store. The only way I've found to fix this so far is to go in and manually input every track number individually, which is both arduous and time-consuming. Any alternatives?

Also, is there a reason this happens sometimes and not others?

posted by jitterbug perfume to Computers & Internet (17 answers total)

Make sure the track numbers are correct?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 11:42 AM on September 17, 2010

I've never added an album to iTunes from a CD where this has happened. Have you tried right clicking on the album songs and clicking "get track names"? That may fill in the "1 of x" stuff which may be the way iTunes sorts if properly. Without this information, I don't know how it would know the order of the songs. I've added song listings manually before, but not from any official album or store.
posted by Brockles at 11:44 AM on September 17, 2010

The only way iTunes can sort that way is if there are track numbers. I've never imported an album from a CD and had it not put them in automatically. Were you connected to the internet when you imported them? If not, iTunes couldn't get that data and left the fields empty. However, if it picked up the track names it probably got the number too...

If you imported them from a mix CD or something, that could also create this problem. If that's the case, the only way to get the track numbers is by hand.

Otherwise, try deleting an album and reimporting from the CD while connected to the internet.
posted by papayaninja at 11:44 AM on September 17, 2010

In fact, if you actually ripped from CD without being connected to the internet as Papaya suggests, the track numbers would be present but the titles wouldn't. The only time track numbers would be missing would be if you had downloaded the tracks from a source that didn't include the track Metadata (not that you would do that, of course), in which case yes, you would have to input it by hand.

A playlist could solve your problem for a given set of songs, but not for your music generally.
posted by The Bellman at 11:50 AM on September 17, 2010

Arg, sorry, I missed where you mentioned the track numbers!
posted by EndsOfInvention at 11:51 AM on September 17, 2010

Using something other than iTunes will only create problems for you, if only because you use an iPod. But really, try deleting and reimporting one CD and see if that works. If they were imported from some other source (downloaded, etc...) then manual input is, as far as I know, your only option.
posted by papayaninja at 12:01 PM on September 17, 2010

Response by poster: I just tried the "get track names" thing (great suggestion Brockles), and got a message that reads: "iTunes can not get CD track names for songs that were not imported using iTunes." Any idea what this might mean?

This isn't a problem with mix CDs (I mean, it is, but an understandable and perfectly acceptable one), these are full albums which I uploaded. I was connected to the internet when I uploaded them.

idyllhands - Glad to know someone else is frustrated by this. Although, I should note in case this may benefit you, when I manually input the track numbers, I *do* have positive results. It's just so ridiculously time-consuming and monotonous. (Read Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates if you haven't.)

The Bellman - I have been using playlists for this very purpose! I am seeking a longer-term solution - both a way to fix the current song orders and also wondering if there's a "correct" way to upload CDs to iTunes which will result in correctly-ordered tracks.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.
posted by jitterbug perfume at 12:07 PM on September 17, 2010

Are these CDs you imported awhile ago? iTunes used to have an option (pre-iTunes 8) that let you decide to import the track numbers or not. The track number option may have been deselected when you were inporting.

If the file names still have the track number in the name, like 01-song_name.mp3, you could use any number of mp3 taggers to put the track numbers back in the tags in a batch process.
posted by FreezBoy at 12:09 PM on September 17, 2010

When this happens, I highlight all the album tracks and hit Ctrl-I (Windows) or Cmd-I (Mac), select the Info tab, and put a check mark by all the fields that are blank (unless you use them, of course) - this makes the values all the same as what's displayed (which may be nothing). Sometimes an errant something-or-other inadvertently slips into a field (most often the Album Artist field) and alters the way iTunes sorts the tracks. Also fields like the Disc Number fields, Grouping, etc. have caused sorting issues.

I've found that making sure the 'blank' tag fields are truly blank in all tracks solves the problem.
posted by DandyRandy at 12:10 PM on September 17, 2010

If you have an internet connection at the time you import the CD, iTunes will go online and get all the track/album info it needs to feel in the metadata. Is it doing that for you? If it's filling in the artist / track names, it must be.
posted by kingbenny at 12:10 PM on September 17, 2010

If you are getting the tracks from mix CDs, are you importing through iTunes, or dragging and dropping from Windows Explorer/Finder?
posted by papayaninja at 12:16 PM on September 17, 2010

Are these CD's you bought or CD's that someone burned for you?
posted by mkultra at 1:11 PM on September 17, 2010

Response by poster: They are all actual (non-mix) CDs. I'm importing them through iTunes. Most of them *are* old, however, probably pre-iTunes 8, but I'm almost certain I didn't de-select the track info option. The artist and album info is correct, there is just no track number information on there and so it sorts the songs alphabetically within the album.
posted by jitterbug perfume at 2:05 PM on September 17, 2010

Best answer: There are pieces of software that can analyze your tracks and fill in missing tag information. Some work better than others, but you could try to play around with them and see if you're satisfied with the results. You don't mention your platform in the post, but here are a couple of examples:

Magic MP3 Tagger (Windows only, free)
SongGenie (Mac Only, shareware)
Tuneup (Mac & Windows, shareware)
Pollux (Mac & Windows, shareware)
Jaikoz (Mac, Windows & Linux, shareware)

I'm sure there are others out there too.
posted by crosbyh at 4:53 PM on September 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

I may be missing something here, but the quick-and-dirty solution that occurs to me which I have used myself more than once is good old splat command-i — get info for each track and enter the necessary metadata. You might be dealing with too many albums for this to be practical, but based on experience I'd suggest it doesn't take all that long if you put on some good music and have an enjoyable beverage close to hand.
posted by Lexica at 8:15 PM on September 17, 2010

Best answer: I'd like to put my vote in for TuneUp. I've used the software on my 60 gb library to fix up the id3 information. It has been a godsend. Every track I have is labeled / sorted / album art'd perfectly.

Try it out.
posted by razzamatazm at 12:58 AM on September 18, 2010

Response by poster: I tried TuneUp and it's pretty close to exactly what I needed! I hope this helps the others who have been experiencing this problem as well. The only slight issue is the price, which, at $19.95 per year, I'm going to write off as "worth it". :)

Thanks!
posted by jitterbug perfume at 11:11 AM on September 18, 2010 [1 favorite]