Alphabetical Sorter
Paste a list below, one item per line, it's sorted alphabetically instantly, with options for direction, case sensitivity and duplicate removal.
About the Alphabetical Sorter
Sorting happens with JavaScript's locale-aware string comparison rather than a raw character-code sort, so accented letters and mixed-case entries land in the order a human reader would actually expect. Nothing pasted in leaves the browser, the list reorders in place while typing.
- Sort direction, A → Z (ascending) or Z → A (descending).
- Case-insensitive sort, ignores letter casing when comparing items, so "banana" and "Apple" sort by letter alone.
- Remove duplicates, strips repeated lines from the sorted result, keeping one copy of each.
Why a plain character-code sort gets this wrong
A naive sort comparing raw character codes puts every uppercase letter before every lowercase one, since uppercase letters occupy lower code points in Unicode, "Zebra" would sort before "apple" under that scheme even though a person alphabetizing the same list would put "apple" first. This tool uses localeCompare instead of comparing raw codes, which is what actually produces the ordering a human expects, and it's exactly why the case-insensitive option exists separately, to explicitly choose whether "Apple" and "apple" should be treated as the same word for sorting purposes or ranked by their literal case.
Accented characters sort next to their plain letter, not after Z
Locale-aware comparison also places accented characters where they belong alphabetically, é sorts near e rather than being pushed to the end of the alphabet the way a naive Unicode code-point sort would place it, since é's code point comes well after z's. This matters for any list mixing accented and unaccented entries, a raw code-point sort would visually separate "café" from "cabinet" and "cactus" even though they clearly belong sorted together by their first few letters.
Numbers inside text sort as characters, not values
Worth knowing before sorting a list that mixes numbers with text, "Item 10" sorts before "Item 2" under this kind of alphabetical comparison, because each character is compared left to right and "1" is a lower character than "2", the sort has no awareness that "10" represents a larger quantity than "2". This is standard behavior for alphabetical sorting generally, not a bug specific to this tool, a genuinely numeric-aware sort needs different logic entirely, worth padding numbers with leading zeros ("Item 02", "Item 10") before sorting if numeric order actually matters for a specific list.
How duplicate removal interacts with case sensitivity
Deduplication happens after sorting and respects the same case-sensitivity setting used for the sort itself, with case-insensitive mode on, "Apple" and "apple" count as the same entry and only the first occurrence in sorted order survives. Turning case-insensitive mode off treats them as genuinely different strings, keeping both in the deduplicated result, worth checking that setting matches the actual intent before relying on the duplicate count.
Common real uses for a quick alphabetical sort
Alphabetizing a contact list, a bibliography, a glossary of terms, or a list of names before a mail merge are all everyday cases where manual sorting is tedious and error-prone once a list runs past a handful of entries. It's also useful as a fast way to spot near-duplicates that a straight duplicate check might miss, sorting groups similar entries next to each other, which makes it easier to notice "Jon Smith" and "John Smith" sitting adjacent in the output than it would be scanning an unsorted list of the same length.
Everything happens locally, nothing gets uploaded
The sort, the case-insensitive comparison, and the deduplication all run as JavaScript directly in the browser tab this page is open in. A list of names, emails, or any other data pasted in for sorting is never sent to a server or stored anywhere, which matters when the list itself is something private, a client roster or internal contact list, not just public reference data.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why would "Zebra" sort before "apple" in some tools but not this one?
A raw character-code sort puts uppercase letters before lowercase ones, since uppercase occupies lower Unicode code points. This tool uses locale-aware comparison instead, which produces the ordering a person actually expects, "apple" before "Zebra," regardless of casing.
Does this tool sort numbers within text numerically?
No. "Item 10" sorts before "Item 2" because each character is compared left to right as text, not as a number. This is standard alphabetical sort behavior, padding numbers with leading zeros first (like "Item 02") produces correct ordering if numeric sorting is actually needed.
Where do accented letters like é end up in the sorted list?
Right next to their unaccented equivalent, é sorts near e rather than at the end of the alphabet. This uses locale-aware comparison rather than raw Unicode code-point order, which would otherwise separate accented letters from words that clearly belong sorted together.
How does duplicate removal decide which case to keep?
It follows the same case-sensitivity setting as the sort. With case-insensitive sorting on, "Apple" and "apple" are treated as duplicates and only the first occurrence in sorted order is kept. With it off, they're treated as different entries and both remain.
Is my pasted list uploaded anywhere?
No. The sort, case comparison, and deduplication all run as JavaScript directly in the browser tab. Nothing pasted in is sent to a server or stored anywhere, which matters for private data like a client roster or internal contact list.
Can sorting help find near-duplicate entries in a list?
Yes, indirectly. Sorting groups similar entries next to each other, making it easier to spot something like "Jon Smith" sitting right next to "John Smith" than it would be scanning the same names scattered through an unsorted list.