Alphabetize a List Online: A to Z, Z to A, Numbers and Duplicates

This tool lets you alphabetize a list in a second: names, keywords, products, cities or vendors. It sorts with proper English rules, so “Émile” sits with the E’s and “10 Main Street” doesn’t jump ahead of “2 Main Street”.

How to alphabetize a list

1. Paste your list

   Done

   One item per line, or separated by commas or semicolons: pick the separator under the box. A column copied from Excel or Google Sheets works too.

2. Pick the order

   Done

   A-Z, Z-A, by length (shortest first), reverse of how you pasted it, or shuffle. Shuffle reshuffles every time you click it.

3. Clean it up

   Done

   By default it removes duplicates, blank lines and extra spaces, and sorts numbers as numbers. You can also number the result or make the sort case sensitive.

4. Copy or keep going

   Done

   Choose how the output is separated and hit “Copy”. “Use as my list” sends the result back to the input box for another pass.

Under the result you’ll see how many items are left and how many duplicates and empty lines were removed.

Alphabetical order rules this sorter follows

A plain computer sort compares character codes, which is why so many tools push every capitalized word above every lowercase one and send “Émile” to the very end. This alphabetical sorter uses your browser’s English collation instead, the same kind of rules people use for indexes and directories:

You paste	Plain code sort	This tool, A-Z
zoe, Zack, Émile, Emma, 10 Main, 2 Main	10 Main, 2 Main, Emma, Zack, zoe, Émile	2 Main, 10 Main, Émile, Emma, Zack, zoe

It also sorts word by word, so “New York” comes before “Newark”: the space counts before any letter.

How to alphabetize in Excel without scrambling your rows

Select one cell in the column, open the Data tab and click Sort A to Z (or Z to A). If Excel asks, choose “Expand the selection” so the other columns move with it. Skip that and names end up separated from their emails. For two keys, such as last name and then first name, click Sort and add a level, as Microsoft’s sorting guide explains.

Two traps ruin most sorts. Numbers stored as text land out of order, and leading spaces from imported data push entries to the wrong place: clear them with TRIM first. Excel 2021 and Microsoft 365 also have =SORT(A2:A100), which returns a sorted copy that updates itself. And if the list isn’t in a spreadsheet yet, paste it into the box above and skip Excel entirely.

How to alphabetize in Google Docs: lists and tables

Google Docs sorts table rows but has no built-in sort for a plain list. For a table, right-click it, pick “Sort table” and choose ascending or descending. Pin the header row first so it stays put, as Google’s help page explains.

For a list of lines or bullets, you have three routes:

• An add-on. Sort Paragraphs works, but it asks for permission to view and manage the documents where it is installed.
• Google Sheets. Paste the list into a column, sort the sheet by that column and paste it back.
• This tool. Paste the list in the box above, pick A-Z and copy the result. No add-on, no permissions, and duplicates disappear on the way.

Sort alphabetically for marketing: 4 real uses

• Keyword lists. Put in alphabetical order, near-identical variants line up next to each other and duplicates from merged exports stand out.
• Customer lists. Alphabetize names before an import and drop the repeats. If the list arrived in all caps, run it through the case converter first.
• Menus, glossaries and service pages. An alphabetized list is easier to scan and easier to maintain.
• Giveaways. Sort the entries to check them, then paste them into the spin the wheel tool to pick a winner live.

It works the same as sorting in Word or Google Sheets, minus the menus, and your list never leaves your browser. Need to alphabetize words from a paragraph? Set the separator to commas or paste one word per line. And if you want to know how long a text is, use the word counter.

Frequently asked questions about alphabetizing a list

01

How do you sort a list in alphabetical order?

Compare the first letter of each item, and when two match, move on to the second letter, then the third, until one differs. “Carter” comes before “Chloé” because a comes before h. If one word is the start of another, the shorter one goes first: “Ann” before “Anna”. For anything longer than a dozen items, paste the list above and pick A-Z: it does the comparing for you and handles capitals and accents.

02

How do I arrange last names in alphabetical order?

Write each name last name first, with a comma: “Brooks, Ava”, “Carter, Liam”. Then sort A to Z and people with the same last name fall into first-name order on their own. If your list is “Ava Brooks” style and lives in a spreadsheet, split first and last names into two columns and sort by the last-name column. Particles such as “de” or “van” follow the person’s own usage, so check those by hand.

03

Do numbers come before letters in alphabetical order?

Yes. In standard sorting, items that start with a digit go before anything that starts with a letter, so “2 Main Street” sits above “Ava Brooks”. The catch is the order of the numbers themselves: plain text sorting puts “10” before “2” because it compares one digit at a time. Keep “Sort numbers as numbers” on and you get 2, 10, 100, the order a human would expect.

04

How do I alphabetize in Word?

Select the list, go to the Home tab and click Sort, the A-to-Z button with an arrow in the Paragraph group. In the dialog, choose Paragraphs, Text and Ascending for A to Z, or Descending for Z to A, and click OK. Word treats every paragraph as one item, so each entry needs its own line. For tables, the same button sorts rows by the column you pick.