Compare Two Lists

How to use

1. 1Paste your first list into List A and your second list into List B, one item per line, or load the sample to see how it works.
2. 2If your lists are not one item per line, choose a different separator under Split each list by, such as commas, tabs, or a custom delimiter.
3. 3Turn on the comparison rules you need: trim whitespace, ignore case, collapse inner spaces, ignore punctuation, or drop blank items.
4. 4Pick a result tab: In both, Only in list A, Only in list B, In either, or Only in one. The count on each tab shows how many items it holds.
5. 5Choose how results are joined and whether to sort them A to Z, then read the selected result in the output box.
6. 6Use Copy result or Download .txt to save the items, or Swap A and B to flip the comparison. Everything stays in your browser.

About this tool

Compare Two Lists takes two lists of text and answers the questions people usually open a spreadsheet for: which items are in both lists, which are in one list but not the other, and what the two lists look like merged together. It treats each list as a set rather than a sequence, which is the key difference from a line-by-line diff. A positional diff cares about order and shows you what changed at each line; this tool ignores order entirely and asks only whether a value is a member of list A, list B, or both. That membership model is what makes it the right tool for reconciling two exports, finding the overlap between two audiences, or working out which records a second file added or dropped. The tool computes five results at once. In both lists is the intersection: every value that appears in list A and also in list B. Only in list A and only in list B are the two one-sided differences, the answer to what is in this list but missing from the other, which is the same job a VLOOKUP or MATCH is normally set up to do without the formula. In either list is the union, both lists folded into a single deduplicated list. Only in one list is the symmetric difference, everything except the values the two lists share. Because every result is a set, duplicates inside a single list are merged automatically, so a name that appears three times in list A counts once. When two values match only because of casing or spacing, the tool keeps the first version it saw exactly as you wrote it, so turning on ignore case does not silently rewrite Apple to apple in the output. Matching is controlled by options that change the comparison key without touching the displayed text. You can trim surrounding whitespace, fold case so Email and email are treated as equal, collapse runs of internal spaces, and strip punctuation and symbols so values that differ only by a stray comma or hyphen still line up. Lists rarely arrive one item per line, so the splitter accepts line breaks, commas, semicolons, tabs, whitespace, or a custom delimiter, and the results can be emitted with whichever separator you need next, including comma plus space for pasting back into a single cell. Results keep the order in which each value first appeared, or can be sorted alphabetically, and each one can be copied or downloaded as a plain text file. A live stats panel shows the distinct count of each list alongside how many items ended up in both and how many in only one, so you can see the size of the overlap at a glance. Everything runs in your browser. The lists you paste are never uploaded, logged, or stored.

Free to use. Works in your browser. No signup, no login.