Natural Sort Order Tool
Quick Tips
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Sort alphanumeric text in human-intuitive order (item2 before item10).
Examples
file1 file10 file2 file20
file1 file2 file10 file20
v1.9 v1.10 v1.2
v1.2 v1.9 v1.10
img1 img12 img3 img21
img1 img3 img12 img21
Chapter 1 Chapter 11 Chapter 2
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 11
Frequently Asked Questions
Natural sort order treats embedded numbers as actual numbers rather than text. While alphabetical sorting puts "item10" before "item2" (because 1 < 2 as characters), natural sorting puts "item2" first because 2 < 10 as numbers.
Standard sorting compares character by character. When comparing "file2" vs "file10", it compares "2" vs "1" as characters. Since the character "1" comes before "2", file10 incorrectly sorts before file2. Natural sorting avoids this by treating number sequences as numbers.
Natural sort handles version numbers intuitively. Version 1.10 correctly comes after 1.9 (since 10 > 9). The dots are treated as separators, and each number segment is compared numerically: 1.2, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 2.0.
Yes, leading zeros are handled naturally. "file01" and "file1" are treated equivalently (both represent the number 1). Items like "item001", "item01", and "item1" sort together based on their numeric value.
You can choose case-sensitive or case-insensitive natural sorting. Case-insensitive sorting groups "Apple", "apple", and "APPLE" together, which is typical for file system sorting. Case-sensitive sorting separates uppercase and lowercase.
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