List Shuffler

How to use List Shuffler

1. Paste your list, one item per line.
2. Shuffle, and copy the new order.
3. Shuffle again for a different ordering — each is independent of the last.
4. Uses a Fisher–Yates shuffle, so every ordering is equally likely.
5. Every item appears exactly once — this is a reordering, not a random draw.
6. Blank lines are ignored; the list stays in your browser.

Why the shuffle algorithm matters

The obvious approach — sorting with a comparator that returns a random value — does not produce a uniform shuffle. Sort algorithms assume a consistent comparator, and a random one breaks that assumption in ways that leave items statistically close to where they started, with some orderings far more likely than others. Fisher–Yates walks the list once, swapping each position with a randomly chosen earlier one, and provably produces every permutation with equal probability. It is also faster.

Shuffling is not the same as random picking

A shuffle is a permutation: every item appears exactly once, in a new order. Picking at random from a list draws independently, so items can repeat and some may never come up. Which you want depends on the situation — assigning a presentation order needs a shuffle, picking a prize winner needs a draw, and running through flashcards without repeats needs a shuffle that you re-run once exhausted.

The number of possible orderings is vast

Ten items have 3.6 million possible orders; twenty have more than two quintillion. This is why a shuffled playlist never repeats an ordering in practice, and why “that shuffle wasn’t random” complaints are usually about human pattern-seeking rather than the algorithm. Genuine randomness produces clusters — three songs by the same artist in a row is unremarkable — and several music services deliberately de-randomise their shuffle to spread artists out, precisely because true randomness feels wrong to listeners.