Sort Order Definite Article

[Embodiment 28]

Is there not a simple way to sort A-Z without Emby ignoring "the." Right now The A-Team is sorted under the A's 

All I see is something about editing an xml file. Where is that located?

[Luke 42077]

Hi: 

It's in /config/system.xml from within the server data folder:

Emby Server Data Folder

[Embodiment 28]

I am having a real problem getting this solution to work. 

Running Emby Server (paid version) on my UnRaid sever. I have gone into the config folder, system.xml and deleted all references to SortRemoveWords.

I have deleted my library several times after doing that and each time the definite article is ignored in my music album sort a-z. 

I even tried a metadata refresh. But that did not work and surely deleting the entire library should solve the problem. 

[Embodiment 28]

As an update. I went to bed, logged into UnRaid and Emby, deleted the nfo files. Just before doing a new import of my music again, I checked the system.xml file.

The whole section was back! I know it was gone yesterday. Looks like it was modified at 2 am this morning when my UnRaid backup took place which I am not sure why it would modify that file except the Docker is stopped and restarted during the backup. If that process causes the system.xml to be modified in anyway that may explain why those definite articles are back in that file. Be great to have a setting within Emby to permanently disable that sorting.

  <SortRemoveWords>
    <string>the</string>
    <string>a</string>
    <string>an</string>
    <string>das</string>
    <string>der</string>
    <string>el</string>
    <string>la</string>
  </SortRemoveWords>

Edited June 29, 2025 by Embodiment
Additional information

[Luke 42077]

11 hours ago, Embodiment said:

As an update. I went to bed, logged into UnRaid and Emby, deleted the nfo files. Just before doing a new import of my music again, I checked the system.xml file.

The whole section was back! I know it was gone yesterday. Looks like it was modified at 2 am this morning when my UnRaid backup took place which I am not sure why it would modify that file except the Docker is stopped and restarted during the backup. If that process causes the system.xml to be modified in anyway that may explain why those definite articles are back in that file. Be great to have a setting within Emby to permanently disable that sorting.

  <SortRemoveWords>
    <string>the</string>
    <string>a</string>
    <string>an</string>
    <string>das</string>
    <string>der</string>
    <string>el</string>
    <string>la</string>
  </SortRemoveWords>

Don't remove the whole SortRemoveWords section because that will cause the server to replace it back with the default value.

Instead, remove the string entries from inside it.

[Embodiment 28]

Thank you. I actually had that thought so I left one definite article between the two SortRemoveWords.

Didn't seem to resolve the issue. After a few more tries, I gave up and just edited each Metadata. Took some time with almost 1,000 albums :-)