Find what two lists share and what each is missing
Compare spreadsheet columns, exported record IDs, filenames, tags, or other one-value-per-line lists without building a lookup formula. Paste List A and List B, then choose Only in A, Only in B, In both, or Combined. Each result contains unique values and keeps the first matching spelling in its original order. This is a membership comparison: the same value on a different line still counts as a match.
List comparison examples
Find records missing from an export
Input
00123 04567 10001
Result
00123
Use List A shown here and List B containing 04567 and 10001, one per line. Only in A returns the missing identifier. Leading zeros remain part of each value; identifiers are never converted to numbers.
Combine two lists without repeats
Input
apple pear apple
Result
apple pear plum
Use List B containing pear and plum, then choose Combined. Values from A come first, followed by values found only in B. Repeated occurrences do not create extra rows in the result.
How to compare two lists
- Paste one value per line into List A and List B, or open a UTF-8 file for either list. File drops also work inside either input area.
- Choose whether surrounding whitespace and blank lines should be ignored. Enable Ignore case when different capitalization should count as the same value.
- Run Compare lists and use Show to switch between the four result sets. The count beside the selector refers to the currently selected result.
- Copy or download that result, or send it to Sort lines or Delimiter. A transferred comparison result is the selected set, not all four sets combined.
List comparison questions
Are my lists sent to a server?
No. Both lists are read and compared on your device. File contents, copied results, and transfers between tools stay in the current browser tab. There is no account requirement and no automatic saving of either list.
Does a match depend on line order?
No. Membership is checked independently of position. This is useful when two exports have different sorting. To inspect changes to sentences or code in their original positions, use a dedicated text-difference tool instead.
What happens to duplicate values?
Each list is treated as a set of unique values after your cleanup choices are applied. The first occurrence is kept. Shared results use the spelling from A. The tool compares membership rather than the number of times a value occurs.
Can one list be empty?
Yes. If B is empty, Only in A contains every unique value from A. If A is empty, Only in B contains B. Two empty lists produce empty results. Turn off Ignore blank lines if a blank value should itself participate in comparison.
Choose the right comparison
Use one value per line, up to 10 MiB per input and 250,000 unique values across the two lists. Commas inside a line remain part of that value. Split a comma-separated list with Delimiter first. The tool does not perform fuzzy matching, compare spreadsheet columns by name, or infer that differently written identifiers refer to the same record.