# Can I have a SortOrder AND a DisplayOrder?
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [October 10, 2020, 6:07am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418 "2020-10-10T06:07:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TCCBodhi](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/TCCBodhi)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2020, 6:07am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418/1 "2020-10-10T06:07:15Z")
I'm new to using MP3Tag, and while it looks promising to clean up tags and get missing art (iTunes has just gotten so progressively bad that I can't handle it anymore). I'll likely be using foobar2000 as my main 'catalog/player', but I was hoping to clean up my nearly 200,000 files using this great clean view that MP3Tag has.
However, I'm missing 1 thing in particular that would be a bitter pill for me if I can't do it. I would like to have a Display Order AND a Sort Order. For example, I want the artist displayed as 'Elton John', but I want it sorted as 'John, Elton'. Also great, but not vital would be a multi-sort in a way for those times when I have 2 (or more) artists like 'Elton John & Kiki Dee' that I could search for by in any by 'John, Elton' or 'Dee, Kiki'.
I have little experience with making changes to the background text that accomplishes all of this, so I'd need a tutorial on making these changes.....more than I see in other community answers which are usually making assumptions beyond my familiarity.
I hope that someone can offer help to accomplish these sorting and viewing preferences. Thanks very much.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2020, 9:53am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418/2 "2020-10-10T09:53:55Z")
Unfortunately there is no fully automated way to achieve this.
What you need are this 3 additional tags:
ALBUMARTISTSORT
ARTISTS \<- (ARTIST with S)
ARTISTSORT
As you can see in the above example for the Artists:
`Lucio Bukowski, Anton Serra & Hippocampe Fou`
there is no way to know for sure, what is the first name, the last name and what's a not changeable group name.
You have to manually decide if `Lucio Bukowski` becames `Bukowski, Lucio` and if `Hippocampe Fou` remains `Hippocampe Fou`
The only possible way (other then manually add the correct names) is to use a source like MusicBrainz where this sort names are already available for some albums/releases. The tagging program [Picard](https://picard.musicbrainz.org/) from MB is one of the tools who can help you to achieve your goal.
BTW: The available MB [WebSourcesScript](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/ws-musicbrainz-xml-webservice/3591) collect "only" the following tags:
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### Author:  [@TCCBodhi](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/TCCBodhi)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2020, 2:04am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418/3 "2020-10-12T02:04:05Z")
Great. I think you addressed everything that I needed. I just have to figure out how to add the xxxSort tags as a standard default tag. I should be able to do that.
Just clarifying on the ARTISTS tag. I'll be able to semi-colon separate the various Artists so they can be found singularly, rather than as a single ARTIST? Would there also be a ARTISTSSORT tag for the singular sort orders? I doubt it since it would throw issues into the display order.
Thanks so much for the excellent help for a newbie. I'll take a look at MusicBrainz as well. With nearly 200,000 song titles, the length of time MP3Tag takes to run through my library makes it tough to be an 'on-the-fly' editor unless I know specifically what I want to edit.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2020, 6:29am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418/4 "2020-10-12T06:29:44Z")
> [@TCCBodhi](#):
>
> the length of time MP3Tag takes to run through my library makes it tough
I am no friend of this name swapping.
Would you really sort "Uriah Heep" under "Heep, Uriah"?
"Led Zeppelin" under "Zeppelin, Led"?
I would leave all the names as they are with one exception: the article.
So that I would find "Beatles" always at "B" and not twice, once under "b" and the others under "T" for "The Beatles".
But in this case I would not swap "Beatles" and "The" but cut away the "The" altogether. And even this scheme leaves enough moments of irritation for groups like "The The" and "The Band".
If you really swap name parts then you need an extra table that tells you which names you swapped and which ones you didn't.
If you want to get all occurrances of "Elton John" to be shown in MP3tag, then filter for
%artist% HAS Elton
The other great question is: does the player use the -Sort fields? And if it does and you scrolled to some artists with "E" at the beginning but you wouldn't find "Elton John" even though you know that this artist is in your collection?
Would you remember that you have to look under "J"?
esp. if you have such a number of tracks, then the addressing scheme must be as simple as possible, otherwise the tracks would be lost between all the other tracks.
And the simplest way would be: as the artist calls himself. No swapping.
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### Author:  [@TCCBodhi](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/TCCBodhi)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2020, 7:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418/6 "2020-10-12T07:40:57Z")
I don't have an issue with band names, but with 200,000+ tracks and as a fan of MANY genres of music, not ALL of my artists are as easily identifiable as Elton John, so I need to choose a consistency that works best across the board, plus I prefer to SEE 'FIRSTNAME LASTNAME' though my SORT order is the opposite. With many of my classical or world music tracks, I often don't know the spelling of their first (or even all of their last) name. Also, with that many tracks, I don't easily come across ANYTHING by simple scrolling. I need my database to be searchable in the way(s) that are helpful for ME, so I'm just asking the questions to see if this will work well for me before I put too much time into it.
I do appreciate your time and your reply though. Thank you!
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2020, 7:51am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418/7 "2020-10-12T07:51:42Z")
> [@TCCBodhi](#):
>
> Just clarifying on the ARTISTS tag. I'll be able to semi-colon separate the various Artists so they can be found singularly, rather than as a single ARTIST?
That's the idea, yes. But it highly depends on the player software. Some use this tag (like KODI), other just ignore it. You have to test it with YOUR software before you put too much time for nothing.
> [@TCCBodhi](#):
>
> Would there also be a ARTISTSSORT tag for the singular sort orders?
Not that I know.
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### Author:  [@TCCBodhi](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/TCCBodhi)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2020, 9:35am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418/8 "2020-10-12T09:35:07Z")
Great, thanks, I'll see if this works well. I appreciate it.
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2026, 12:28pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/can-i-have-a-sortorder-and-a-displayorder/50418/9 "2026-02-09T12:28:52Z")