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Put a list in alphabetical order

Paste a list, one item per line or separated by commas, and sort it A to Z or Z to A. Sort numbers naturally, sort names by last name, ignore leading articles, and tidy blank lines and duplicates.

Off: your text is gone when you close the page. It is never sent anywhere.

Sort order

Your sorted list appears here.

  • Your text stays on your device
  • Free, no sign-up
  • Works on phone and desktop

How to alphabetize a list

  1. 1

    Paste or type your list, one item per line. If it is separated by commas instead, choose Also split items at: Commas.

  2. 2

    Pick a sort order: A to Z, Z to A, natural (so 2 comes before 10), by last name, by length, shuffled or reversed.

  3. 3

    Turn on the options you need: ignore “The” and “A” in titles, remove duplicates and blank lines, or number the lines.

  4. 4

    Copy the sorted list or download it as a text file. It updates as you edit, so you can keep adding items.

Features

  • Sorts like a person would

    Capital letters don’t jump ahead, accented letters sit with their plain letter, and numbers can sort by value.

  • Names and titles

    Sort people by last name, skipping Jr. and Sr., and file book or film titles under the word after “The”.

  • Tidies as it sorts

    Trims stray spaces, drops blank lines and repeats, and can number the result or put it back on one line.

  • Private

    Your list is sorted in your browser and never sent anywhere. The link only remembers your settings.

Sorting rules, with examples

Plain A to Z order is right for most lists, but numbers, book titles and people’s names each have their own convention. Here is the same kind of list sorted plainly and with the option made for it, worked out by the tool itself:

ListA to ZWith the option
NumbersChapter 1, Chapter 10, Chapter 2, Chapter 21, Chapter 3Natural: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 10, Chapter 21
TitlesA Tale of Two Cities, An American Tragedy, Beloved, Moby-Dick, The Great GatsbyIgnore “The”, “A” and “An”: An American Tragedy, Beloved, The Great Gatsby, Moby-Dick, A Tale of Two Cities
NamesAda Lovelace, Alan Turing, Edward Hopper, Grace Hopper, Martin Luther King Jr.Last name: Edward Hopper, Grace Hopper, Martin Luther King Jr., Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing

Natural order: when numbers are involved

A computer comparing text looks at one character at a time, so “Chapter 10” beats “Chapter 2” because 1 comes before 2. That is why files named 1, 2, 10 often end up as 1, 10, 2. Natural order reads every run of digits as a whole number, so chapters, invoice numbers, versions and street addresses come out the way you count them. If you can rename things yourself, padding with zeros (01, 02, 10) makes them sort correctly everywhere, even in programs without a natural sort.

Titles that start with “The”, “A” or “An”

Library catalogs skip a leading article when they file a title, so The Great Gatsby sits under G, not T. Turn on Ignore “The”, “A” and “An” to do the same for a reading list, a film collection or a band list. The titles are shown in full; only the sorting skips the article. A title that is just the word “A” or “The” is left alone, and words that merely start with those letters, like “Theater” or “Anchor”, are not affected.

Last names, accents and spaces

Last name sorts each line by its final word and breaks ties by the whole line, so two Hoppers are ordered by first name. Class rosters, guest lists and bibliographies usually want this. Names written “Lovelace, Ada” are already last name first, so sort those A to Z.

Accented letters follow English dictionary practice and sort with their plain letter: zebra, Émile, über, eagle, Uber, apple becomes apple, eagle, Émile, Uber, über, zebra. Spaces count as coming before any letter, which gives word-by-word order, the system many indexes use: Newark, New York, Newport, New Haven sorts as New Haven, New York, Newark, Newport, with every “New …” place ahead of Newark.

More list tools

To strip repeats from a long list without sorting it, use remove duplicate lines, which also shows which lines were repeated and how often. Text copied from a PDF with a break at the end of every line is fixed by remove line breaks. To see what changed between two versions of a list, paste both into text compare and switch to line mode, and to count the items in a list, the word counter shows lines and words at a glance.

Frequently asked questions

How do I put a list in alphabetical order?

Paste the list into the box with one item on each line and leave the sort order on A to Z. The sorted list appears on the right straight away; copy it with one click. If your items are separated by commas, choose Commas under "Also split items at", and pick "On one line, with commas" to get a comma-separated list back.

Why does "Item 10" come before "Item 2"?

Alphabetical order compares one character at a time, and the character "1" comes before "2", so "10" sorts ahead of "2" just as "ba" sorts ahead of "c". Choose Natural instead: it reads each run of digits as a number, so Item 2 comes before Item 10.

Does uppercase or lowercase come first?

Neither, by default: "apple" and "Apple" count as the same word, so they stay in the order you typed them and both sort among the other a-words. Turn off "Ignore case" if you want them treated as different items; then, of two items that differ only in case, the capitalized one comes first.

How do I sort names by last name?

Choose Last name. Each line is sorted by its last word, so "Ada Lovelace" goes under L, and people with the same last name are ordered by first name. Suffixes such as Jr., Sr., II and III are skipped, so "Martin Luther King Jr." sorts under King. If a name has a particle you want to file under, such as "Van Buren", write it as "Van Buren, Martin" and sort A to Z instead.

Where do numbers, symbols and accented letters go?

Punctuation and symbols come first, then numbers, then letters. Accented letters are sorted with their plain letter: "Émile" sits among the e-words and "über" next to "Uber", rather than after z as in a computer’s character order.

Can I shuffle a list instead of sorting it?

Yes. Choose Shuffle for a random order, and click "Shuffle again" for a new one. The order comes from your browser’s cryptographic random number generator, so every arrangement is equally likely; it is fine for picking a running order or drawing names.

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