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How to sort data by the most frequent value in Excel?

Supposing you have a long list of data in your worksheet, and now you would like to sort this list by the frequency of which each word occurs. That is to say, the most common value (for example, occurs four times in the column) is listed first, and then be followed by the words which occur three times, twice and once as following screenshots shown. How could you solve this task in Excel?

Sort data by the most frequent value with a helper column

In Excel, there is no direct function for you to sort the data by frequency of occurrence at once, you need to count the occurrence of the values first, and then apply sort function in Excel.

1. Select a blank cell beside original column, and enter this formula =COUNTIF($A$2:$A$16,A2) into it, and then drag this cell's AutoFill Handle down to the range as you need. See screenshot:

Note: In the above formula, A2:A16 is the specified list where you will sort by frequency, and A2 is the first data of this list.

2. Keep selecting these formula cells, and click Data > Sort A to Z or Sort Z to A as you need. See screenshot below:

3. In the opening Sort Warning dialog box, please check the Expand the selection option, and click the Sort button. See screenshot above:

4. And now the original column has been sorted by the frequency already (see below screenshot). If necessary, please delete the added helper column.

Sort data by the most frequent value with Kutools for Excel

Actually, Kutools for Excel provides an directly workaround to sort any list/column by the frequency easily with the Advanced Sort utility. Please do as follows:

Kutools for Excel - Packed with over 300 essential tools for Excel. Enjoy a full-featured 30-day FREE trial with no credit card required! Download now!

1. Select the list you need to sort by frequency, and click Kutools Plus > Sort > Advanced Sort. See screenshot:

2. In the popping up Advanced Sort dialog, please select the column which you will sort by frequency, choose Frequency from the Sort On drop down list, specify the Order you want, and click the Ok button. See screenshot:

Kutools for Excel's Advanced Sort utility provides us with much more flexible sorting methods: sort by text length, sort by last name, sort by absolute value, etc. Click to know more...

Kutools for Excel - Supercharge Excel with over 300 essential tools. Enjoy a full-featured 30-day FREE trial with no credit card required! Get It Now

Quickly find the most frequent text value or number in Excel

Generally, we can apply the MODE function to find the most frequent number in Excel. But how to get the most frequent text value from the specified range? Kutools for Excel’s Find most common value formula provides an easy way for you!

Get a 30-day full-featured free trial now!


Kutools for Excel - Supercharge Excel with over 300 essential tools. Enjoy a full-featured 30-day FREE trial with no credit card required! Get It Now

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Comments (9)
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Humphrey Allen
Humphrey Allen
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Hi there,

I am trying to sort the contents of an excel table in terms of the maximum number of "Yes" values that each row has in columns F to M of the table.

For example if row 36 has "Yes" in B, C, D, E and F (let us simplify and say this is the maximum number of "Yes" values), then row 36 should be at the top. If row 2 has "Yes" values in only B, D and E, then it should come after row 36: row 36 has 5 "Yes" values, row 2 has 3.

How do I do this? I am using excel on a mac, if that makes a difference. Thanks very much!!
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DALIP SINGH
DALIP SINGH
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Hi All

In this solution after getting occurrence ,rest of the sorting i want to do with excel 2016 formula

can anyone help me ...how we can sort with using 2016 version formula only
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skyyang
skyyang     DALIP SINGH
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Hello, singh,
If you want to use a formula to sort the data, you can use the Sort function, but, this function is only available for Excel 365 and later versions.
=SORT(array, [sort_index], [sort_order], [by_col])

To get more detaied information of this function, the below article can help you!
https://www.extendoffice.com/excel/functions/excel-sort-function.html

Please have a try, thank you!
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Brittany
Brittany
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Not sure if my comment ever went through but I just figured out my goof! Thank you so much for posting this, it's exactly what I was looking for!!
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Brittany
Brittany
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Just what I was looking for! I'm just having a little trouble with it still because my list is first and last names and it's only looking at the first word. So for example, if the first 10 names were "Taylor Swift", it's including "Taylor Morrisen" in the count. I'm still working on figuring it out but definitely worth including in this article! Thanks for posting (:
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Vipera
Vipera
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DOES NOT WORK FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I give the =COUNTIF($A$2:$A$15,"="&$A2) - it does not count the values for me, but instead, it only writes the count of the data which is in the field A2!
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Freyz
Freyz     Vipera
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Remove a dollar sign on A2
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Simon
Simon     Vipera
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Hi Vipera, That may happen if you've got the "$" symbol in the wrong place. To make sure you have it correct, type in the cell number (eg E2) and then press "F4" until the $ symbol is in the correct place. Alternatively, as you are only copying the formula down one column, you can leave the second cell number without the $ symbol and it should still work fine.
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Firoze
Firoze
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Thanks for the excellent trick. Is helping me out in sorting the data of a major shipping port that I have which helps in bringing out super cool trivia stuff regarding that port! :D
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