Hmm... my version of iTunes ignores leading articles. So, The Rolling Stones does appear under 'R'. I guess this could be region based. You are correct, setting the Sort Artist Field to "Rolling Stones" should force the issue.

To create your desired rename template do the following:

Decide which field is to have articles flipped. Assume Title for now. Create an action as follows:

Copy the Title field to Variable 1
Set for sorting in Variable 1
Rename Files (Variable 1)

The 'Set for sorting' statement is called Sort Form in the function list. The Sort Form statement uses the Natural Sort Exception set. This is the Exception set tagged with an 'S' indicator in Preferences-Exceptions. If I remember correctly, the set is built in with initial values of "a, an, the". You can add any values you want.

Basically the above action copies whatever field you'd like (in this case Title), to Variable 1. It then flips any articles, which are contained in the Natural Sort Exception set, at the front of Variable 1 It then calls a rename Template called Variable 1. This template should contain a ❨Variable 1❩ token, but can contain any other sequence of tokens you wish. eg. if you only want to use the Title field, the rename template named Variable 1 would contain:

❨Variable 1❩

After you've created the action and rename template you can go to the Action Manager, select the created action, click in the Menu column and select Rename. This will place the action on the Rename menu on the Actions submenu.

I've uploaded the action and rename template which configures everything described above. You can download it at:

https://2manyrobots.com/actions/SampleSortFormRename.zip

Unzip the file and drag the unzipped plist file to the main window's file list area (or do a Yate>Import Preferences). Once imported you will have a Variable 1 rename template and an action called SampleSortFormRename which is available on the Rename menu's Actions submenu.

If you want a field other than Title you will have to edit the action and possibly the rename template.

re #2: Argh....please don't get me started on ranting about iTunes and its sync process with iPhones, iPods, etc. 🙂