How to Sort by Number on Google Sheets on PC or Mac

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: October 25, 2022

This wikiHow teaches you how to rearrange all the cells in a column according to their alphanumeric data on Google Sheets, using a desktop internet browser.

Things You Should Know

Highlight the column you want to sort. Then click Data > Sort range.
Choose a sorting method. A to Z will sort from low to high, while Z to A will sort from high to low.
Click Sort.

Steps

1
Open Google Sheets in an internet browser. Type sheets.google.com in your browser's address bar, and hit ↵ Enter or ⏎ Return on your keyboard.
2
Click the spreadsheet file you want to edit. Find the file you want to edit on the list of your saved sheets, and open it.

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3
Select the column you want to sort. Find the column header letter at the top of your spreadsheet, and click it. This will select and highlight the entire column.
4
Click the Data tab. This button is on a tabs bar below the file name in the upper-left corner of your screen. It will open a drop-down menu.
5
Click Sort range on the Data menu. This option will open a new pop-up window, and allow you to customize your sorting settings.
- This option will sort the selected column, and won't affect any other data.
- If you want to sort all the rows in your spreadsheet according to the data in the selected column, click Sort sheet by column on the Data menu.
6
Select your sorting method. You can select A to Z or Z to A here.
- If you select A to Z, cells with lower numeric data will be bumped up to the top of the column, and higher numbers will move to the bottom.
- If you select Z to A, higher numbers will be up top, and lower numbers will be at the bottom.
- If you have a header row at the top of your spreadsheet, check the Data has header row box here. This will exclude the top row from sorting.
7
Click the blue Sort button. This will apply the sort filter, and rearrange all the cells in the selected column according to the alphanumeric data in each cell.