Text Sorter
Sort lines alphabetically, by length, or randomly
How to use Text Sorter
Sort lines of text alphabetically, reverse, by length or randomly. Remove duplicates. Free online text sorting tool, no signup.
What is a text sorter used for?
Sorting lines of text is a fundamental operation in data processing, development, and content management. What might take minutes manually can be done instantly with a text sorter.
- Sorting lists alphabetically: Sort a list of country names, product names, or team members for display in a navigation menu or dropdown.
- Removing duplicates: Paste a list of email addresses or URLs and remove duplicates before importing into a CRM or mailing list.
- Organizing CSS properties: Many style guides recommend sorting CSS properties alphabetically within each rule for consistency and easier diffing.
- Sorting log entries: Reorder log lines chronologically or alphabetically to find patterns.
- Randomizing lists: Randomly shuffle a list of participants for a fair draw or presentation order.
- Sorting by line length: Useful for cleaning up data — identify unusually long or short entries that may be errors.
Case sensitivity: By default, uppercase letters sort before lowercase in ASCII order ('Z' before 'a'). Case-insensitive sorting treats 'Apple' and 'apple' as equivalent — usually the expected behavior for human-readable lists.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does sorting modify my original text?
No — the tool works on a copy of your input. Your original text remains unchanged in the input field. The sorted result appears separately and can be copied independently.
How does alphabetical sorting handle numbers?
Numbers in text are sorted lexicographically by default: '10' sorts before '2' because '1' comes before '2' in ASCII. For natural number sorting (1, 2, 10 instead of 1, 10, 2), use the 'natural sort' option if available.
Can I sort in reverse alphabetical order?
Yes — descending (Z to A) sort reverses the alphabetical order. This is useful for showing the most recent items first when lines contain dates or version numbers.
What counts as a line?
A line is any sequence of characters followed by a newline character (Enter). Empty lines are preserved by default but can be removed with the 'remove empty lines' option.
Can I sort a CSV file using this tool?
You can sort the rows of a CSV by pasting the content, but the tool sorts entire lines as text — it does not sort by a specific column. For column-based sorting, use a spreadsheet application or the CSV to JSON converter.
Text sorter vs spreadsheet vs command line
The command line (sort on Unix/Linux) is the most powerful option — supports locale-aware sorting, stable sorts, and custom key fields. But it requires terminal access and knowledge of flags. A spreadsheet (Excel, Google Sheets) sorts columns visually and handles structured data well. A browser-based text sorter like this one is the fastest for unstructured lists — paste, click, copy. No files to open, no commands to remember.