What do the three sorts actually order by?

Hue angle, OKLCH lightness and OKLCH chroma respectively. All three use the same perceptual colour space, so the orders are stable for a given set of values.

Can I reverse a sort or choose the direction?

Not on this page. Each sort has one fixed direction, and the list can be edited afterwards but not flipped with a control.

Does sorting fix a bad palette?

No. Ordering changes how the palette reads, not what it contains. A set with no dark values still has no dark values after sorting.

Which sort should I use before shipping a palette?

Lightness first — it exposes whether the set can cover surfaces, text and borders at all. Then chroma, which shows what will be read as the accent by accident.

Is the sorted palette saved?

No. Nothing persists, and the page returns to its default colours on the next visit, so copy the values out once the order is settled.

Palette Sorter

Palette

Sort

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The palette sorter orders any list of colours by hue, by OKLCH lightness or by chroma — three sorts that each reveal a different structure in the same palette.

What is Palette Sorter?

Order is information. The same six colours in one sequence read as a ramp and in another as a set, so the palette sorter offers three ways to sort a list and lets the arrangement say what the palette is actually made of. Colours are entered or edited in a list on the left; three buttons on the right apply the sorts, and each one reorders the list in place.

Sort colors by hue: orders colours around the wheel, which turns a palette into a spectrum and exposes gaps where a hue family is missing.
Sort by oklch lightness: orders from dark to light, which reads like an elevation ladder and is the fastest way to see whether a set has usable surfaces.
Sort by chroma: orders from muted to saturated, which separates the quiet colours from the loud ones and usually identifies the accent by position.
Every sort runs on OKLCH coordinates, so the hue order follows perceptual spacing rather than the raw numbers of the input format.

Sorting by hue answers a question about coverage: a palette that looks varied at a glance often turns out to occupy one narrow arc of the wheel, and the sorted strip makes that obvious. Sorting by lightness answers a question about structure: if the first four values are all in the 0.5 to 0.7 band, the palette has no surfaces and no ink, whatever its colours are. Sorting by chroma answers a question about emphasis: the value at the loud end is going to be read as the accent whether you intended it or not. Each sort is reversible in the sense that the palette is rebuilt from the same values, so nothing is lost by trying all three.

Sorting never changes a colour, only its position, so a palette that was unbalanced before stays unbalanced.
No descending option on any sort: the direction is fixed as the tool defines it.
No export and no persistence. The order has to be copied out manually, and the page starts from its default set each visit.
Nothing measures contrast, so a palette that sorts neatly can still be unusable for text.

It also helps to know that the sorts compose rather than compete: hue order answers where the palette sits on the wheel, oklch lightness order answers how much tonal range it has, and chroma order answers which value will read as the accent whether or not you intended one. Applying all three in a row turns a palette review into three specific questions instead of one vague impression.

The useful habit is to sort before you finalise, not after. A set that survives all three arrangements — spread across hues, laddered by lightness, distinct in chroma — is almost always a stronger palette than one that only looks good in the order it was typed. When the arrangement is for a reader rather than for you, sort by hue for swatch sheets and by lightness for scales and legends, and keep the unsorted order for anything that has to match a source document exactly.

How to use Palette Sorter

Enter or edit the palette in the list, adding and removing rows as needed.
Press the hue sort to see how much of the wheel the palette covers.
Press the lightness sort to find out whether the set contains real surfaces and inks.
Press the chroma sort to identify the accent by position rather than by opinion.

When to use Palette Sorter vs related tools

Use this when a palette's order matters — a swatch sheet, a legend, a scale, or a set that needs auditing for coverage. The palette comparison tool measures two palettes against each other, the palette importer is where an existing list comes from, and the palette balance analyzer reports the averages that a sort only hints at.

Privacy & Security

This tool runs entirely in your browser — no data ever leaves your device. There is no server round-trip, no upload, no logging, and no account required. Your input is processed locally using client-side JavaScript and is never stored, transmitted, or accessible to anyone else. When you close the tab, everything disappears.