Alphabetical sorting discrepancy between playlist and queue

[paintedships]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

PC Desktop app and Google Pixel 6 Pro

Operating System

Windows 11 and Android 16

Spotify version 

Spotify for Windows (64 bit)

1.2.90.451.gb094aab0

and

9.1.50.1906 for Android 

My Question or Issue

I've found that since the latest May 2026 update on the desktop and Android apps, the alphabetical sorting is different in the playlist than in the queue (when not shuffled). This would be fine but the queue skips large numbers of songs because of the difference in alphabetical sorting. This is not just in ‘Sort by Title’, but in sort by artist and album as well. 

Examples attached from my soundtrack playlist on my desktop app, sorted by title. It's the same on Android too.

This doesn't seem to be an issue on IOS as the playlist and queue match.

I haven't changed any settings or done anything differently to what I usually do. It just seemed to change itself after the update, as if the queue was updated and the playlist sort wasn't or the other way around.

[Yordan]

Hey, @paintedships,

Thanks for the detailed report! I've forwarded it to the relevant team who'll investigate further. In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest version of Spotify so you don't miss out on any updates.

Cheers 🤘

[mysz0neq]

Plan

Premium

Country

Poland

Device

MacBook Air M4

Operating System

MacOS Sequoia 15.6.1

Spotify for macOS (Apple Silicon)
1.2.90.451.gb094aab0

My Question or Issue

Recent Spotify update apparently changed alphabetical order sorting method - before the update whitespaces were treated as if they weren't there (i.e. "Start me up" > "Star Treatment" > "Stay"). Now they are treated as real characters (i.e. "Stairway to heaven" > "Star Treatment" > "Starboy"), so sorting has somewhat more sense, however the new sorting method has not been applied to the queue. This means, that if I play "Star Treatment" on this sorted playlist, then on the playlist it shows that the next song should be "Starboy", but in the queue it's "Stay".

[Shadowkaras]

Plan
Premium

Country
US

Device
Samsung S22

Operating System
Andriod
 
My Question or Issue:

In the mobile app, the Alphabetical sorting display appears to be bugged. When playing the playlist, the songs play in the correct order but the display does not sort correctly. 

When I look at the same playlist in the desktop version, the sorting displays and responds as expected. I have done all of the usual workarounds of disabling settings, clearing cache, and uninstalling and reinstalling the app. 

Desktop view

App view:

[Amay]

Hey @Shadowkaras, welcome to the Spotify Community! 🎵

I'd suggest a few things:

• Check a different playlist. See if the sorting by title shows different order in both the mobile and desktop apps.
• Confirm that the sorting option is applied to the playlist on the mobile app. You can check out this guide and share a screenhot of the selected sorting order as well.

Let me know how it goes. 🙂

[Shadowkaras]

I have seen this behavior in other Playlist as well.

[Joan]

Hi @Shadowkaras,

Thanks for the reply.

We looked into this and tried to reproduce this with similar tracks, but the results were inconclusive. Does this issue mainly affect songs with numbers and/or punctuation at the start or alphabetic titles well? Could you please make a test playlist with a small number of songs, 10-20 or so, and see if the same happens there? If it does, send us some screenshots of what you see and a link to the playlist itself so we can take a closer look.

Keep us posted.

[bergech]

I have the same problem. It looks like the 'Title' sort includes special chars (like ' ) and spaces whereas the queue sort does not. Hence the discrepancy. It is especially prevalent in titles starting I' .

[Roghain]

Plan

Premium

Country

Netherlands

Device

Self built PC

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

I have a playlist set to play sorted by 'Album'. Occasionally (1-3 times per hour) it will start playing by artist name. How do I stop this from happening?

Unrelated and not as annoying but while we are on the subject of sorting a playlist.

This is how the playlist sorts a number of albums:

Nighthawks at the Diner

No Code

No place for disgrace

No prayer for the dying

No tourists

(The) No.6 Dance

Not of this earth

Number of the beast

Now, when playing it actually uses this order:

Nighthawks at the Diner

(The) No.6 Dance

No Code

No place for disgrace

No prayer for the dying

Not of this earth

No tourists

Number of the beast

Also, sorting numbers is all wrong:

4 great thrash songs

13

16 Valve hate

72 Seasons

'74 jailbreak (note the apostrophe)

99.9 F

1984

2112

What is going on here? When sorting alphabetically, it should actually do just that and why is the order played different from the order in the playlist?

[mvficly]

I've had the same issue and done extensive testing with the Spotify escalations team (before they just shrugged their shoulders and said "sucks to be you, oh well, we don't care anymore") and can confirm that it has something to do with numbers and punctuation, and it affects every playlist I have on both the Windows app and mobile.

[mvficly]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

Windows PC

Operating System

Windows 11 Home

My Question or Issue

Alphabetical sorting is no longer working correctly for me on either the desktop or mobile apps. This seems to be primarily affecting titles/artist names that start with punctuation or numerals. The order that shows up when I sort the playlist is entirely different from the order that the songs actually play in. 

It happens whenever I sort any playlist by song title, artist or album title - the actual sort category doesn't seem to matter, and neither does the playlist size.

I tried working with the support escalations team for a while, and from that I can confirm that it's happening on multiple accounts - we tried a test account and it had the same issue. Reinstalling the app did not help. Since the escalations team eventually just said "oh well, sucks to be you, not our problem anymore" and then started ignoring me, I was hoping that someone else out there had found a fix?

[Shadowkaras]

I created a support playlist with 16 songs and the same behavior appears. The issue has to be around how your sorting code handles numbers and special characters. Again the songs play in the order shown on Windows but the andriod display is incorrect. 

Here is a link to the playlist - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/500zLAjhqScqY3YsVuovy5?si=0e9f5bc514904bcb

I would love to see screenshots or the results of your testing. This clearly is not a user issue and my phone updates are current. I would like to see some kind of patch role out to address this. 

Windows

Android

[Dessi]

Hey @Shadowkaras and @mvficly,

We've merged your posts with this main thread, where the issue was originally reported and being looked into. Once we have more info about it, we'll make sure to update you here in the thread. Make sure you're always running the latest version in the meantime and thanks for the patience!

The Community is always here in case you need help with anything else.