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

Sort data by the most frequent value with Kutools for Excel

Find the most frequent text value or number from a list/column

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:

1. Select the list you need to sort by frequency, and click Enterprise > 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 - Includes more than 300 handy Excel tools. Full feature free trial 60-day, no credit card required! Get it now!

Demo

Related articles:

How to sort email address by domain in Excel?

How to sort or filter data by strikethrough in Excel?

How to sort rows by odd or even numbers in Excel?

How to sort rows to put the blank cells on top in Excel?

Excel Productivity Tools

300+ Advanced Features Increase Your Productivity by 70%, and Help You To Stand Out From Crowd!

Would you like to complete your daily work quickly and perfectly? Kutools For Excel brings 300+ cool and powerful advanced features (Combine workbooks, sum by color, split cell contents, convert date, and so on...) for 1500+ work scenarios, helps you solve 80% Excel problems.

•  Deal with all complicated tasks in seconds, help to enhance your work ability, get success from the fierce competition, and never worry about being fired.
•  Save a lot of work time, leave much time for you to love and care the family and enjoy a comfortable life now.
•  Reduce thousands of keyboard and mouse clicks every day, relieve your tired eyes and hands, and give you a healthy body.
•  Become an Excel expert in 3 minutes, and get admiring glance from your colleagues or friends.
•  No longer need to remember any painful formulas and VBA codes, have a relaxing and pleasant mind, give you a thrill you've never had before.
•  Spend only $39, but worth than $4000 training of others. Being used by 110,000 elites and 300+ well-known companies.
•  60-day unlimited free trial. 60-day money back guarantee. Free upgrade and support for 2 years. Buy once, use forever.
•  Change the way you work now, and give you a better life immediately!

Read More Download Now Purchase

---

Office Tab Brings Efficient And Handy Tabs to Office (include Excel), Just Like Chrome, Firefox, And New IE

• Increases your productivity by 50% when viewing and editing multiple documents.
• Reduce hundreds of mouse clicks for you every day, say goodbye to mouse hand.
• Open and create documents in new tabs of same window, rather than in new windows.
• Help you work faster and easily stand out from the crowd! One second to switch between dozens of open documents!

Read More Download Now Purchase