About the List Randomizer
The list randomizer shuffles any list into a random order. Paste names, tasks, songs, questions or anything else — one item per line, or comma separated on a single line — and get the same items back in a fair, unbiased order. It is ideal for presentation or speaking order, turn order in games, randomising survey or quiz questions, playlist shuffles and assigning people to time slots.
Choose how the result is written: one per line, numbered 1., 2., 3. for a running order, or comma separated for pasting into a message or spreadsheet. You can remove duplicate lines (case-insensitive) before shuffling, and the tool tells you how many different orders were possible — even a list of 20 items has over 2.4 quintillion arrangements.
Shuffling uses the Fisher–Yates algorithm with cryptographically secure random numbers, which makes every ordering exactly equally likely — unlike sorting by a random key in a spreadsheet, which can be subtly biased. Add a seed to get the same order again later.
How to use the list randomizer
- 1Paste your list, one item per line or comma separated on one line.
- 2Pick an output format — numbered works well for running orders.
- 3Turn on duplicate removal if the list may contain repeats.
- 4Copy the randomized list; change any input to shuffle again.
Formula and method
The list is shuffled with the Fisher–Yates (Knuth) algorithm: walking from the last item to the first, each item is swapped with a randomly chosen item at or before its position. With a uniform random source this produces each of the n! possible orders with exactly equal probability, in a single pass.
The number of possible orders grows extremely fast — 5 items have 120 orders, 10 have 3,628,800 and 52 (a deck of cards) have about 8.07 × 10^67. Each item has a 1 ÷ n chance of ending up in any given position, including first.
- n
- Number of items in the list
- n!
- n factorial — the number of distinct orderings
Worked examples
Presentation order for 8 people
Eight names can be arranged in 8! = 40,320 different orders. The shuffle picks one of them with equal probability and numbers it as a running order.
Shuffle a comma-separated list with duplicates
“Red” duplicates “red” (case is ignored), so four colours remain. Four items have 4! = 24 possible orders, and the result is written back as a comma-separated line.
Shuffle a full deck of 52 cards
A 52-card deck has 52! ≈ 8.07 × 10^67 possible orders — so a properly shuffled deck is almost certainly in an order that has never existed before.
Frequently asked questions
How do I randomize the order of a list?+
Paste the items, one per line, and the tool instantly returns them in a random order using a Fisher–Yates shuffle. Change any setting or the seed to reshuffle as many times as you like.
Is the shuffle truly random and unbiased?+
Yes. Fisher–Yates with a cryptographically secure random source makes every one of the n! possible orders equally likely. Home-made methods such as sorting by a random number can be slightly biased.
How do I shuffle a list in Excel?+
Add a helper column with =RAND(), fill it down, then sort the list by that column. In Excel 365 you can use =SORTBY(A2:A20, RANDARRAY(ROWS(A2:A20))) in one step.
How many ways can a list be ordered?+
A list of n different items can be ordered in n factorial (n!) ways: 3 items have 6 orders, 8 items have 40,320 and 20 items have about 2.43 × 10^18.
Can I shuffle a list into teams or groups?+
Shuffle the list here and split it into consecutive blocks, or use the random team generator, which shuffles and divides people into a chosen number of balanced teams for you.