Sort Excel Online

What the Sort Runs, in Order

Three things happen to the sheet, always in this sequence. The global search box drops any row that does not contain your text in at least one cell. The single column filter rule then drops any remaining row that fails it. Whatever survives is sorted by your list of sort levels. Because filtering runs first, a filter that excludes a row also excludes it from the ordering - you never sort rows you are not going to download.

Sort Levels and How Ties Break

Level 1 decides the order. Level 2 only looks at rows where level 1 tied, level 3 only where levels 1 and 2 both tied, and so on - the numbered badges beside each row are the priority, and the up and down arrows change it. When every level ties, rows keep the position they had in the original sheet, so the sort is stable and repeated runs give the same answer. Removing every level leaves the rows in their original order, which is useful when you only want the filter.

A department-then-revenue sort of four rows looks like this:

How Two Cells Are Compared

If both cells parse as numbers, they are compared as numbers. Currency symbols, thousands separators, percent signs, and spaces are stripped before that test, so $1,200 compares as 1200 - and note that 45% compares as 45, not 0.45, so do not mix percentages and plain decimals in one column. Otherwise both cells are compared as text with numeric collation and base sensitivity: Item 2 sorts before Item 10, and case and accents are ignored. Blank cells are the exception to everything: they always sort last, in ascending and descending order alike.

Filter Rules and Edge Cases

Contains and Equals compare the trimmed, lowercased text of the cell, so they ignore case and stray padding. Empty and Not empty ignore the value box entirely. Greater than and Less than are strictly numeric: a row is kept only when both the cell and your value parse as numbers, so a text cell in a numeric column is dropped rather than guessed at. An empty value box with Contains or Equals matches every row.

Two other things are worth knowing before you download. Turning off First row headers makes the top row an ordinary data row that sorts with the rest, and columns become Column 1, Column 2 and so on. Date cells arrive as the Excel serial number behind them, which sorts chronologically but exports as a number - reapply a date format in Excel afterwards. The preview shows the first 30 rows; the download contains every matching row, in one sheet, as values without the original number formats.

When a Different Tool Fits Better

One column rule is often not enough. For several conditions combined with AND or OR, use Filter Excel Rows. If sorting was only a way to spot repeated rows, go straight to Remove Duplicates, and if you wanted each group in its own file rather than one ordered list, use Split Excel by Column Value. When a sort produces an order you did not expect, the usual cause is a column holding both numbers and text - Excel Data Profiler flags those columns as mixed.