Ranker is a comparison-based sorting tool that builds a definitive ranked list of songs or albums by asking you to pick your favourite from two options at a time. Instead of staring at a blank list trying to decide where everything goes, you just answer one simple question repeatedly until everything is sorted.

It works for any size catalogue — from a single 10-track album up to an artist's entire discography spanning hundreds of songs.

The ranker uses an optimised merge sort with transitive inference. That means:

1. You compare two items and pick your favourite — your choice is recorded as a preference.

2. The algorithm uses those preferences to bubble items toward their correct position.

3. Crucially, if you've said A > B and B > C, the algorithm already knows A > C without asking you. These inferred comparisons are skipped automatically, cutting down the total number of picks you need to make significantly.

4. A progress counter shows how many comparisons remain. For a 50-song catalogue expect roughly 150–250 picks. For 100 songs expect roughly 400–600.

Tip: try to stay consistent. If you contradict yourself too often (e.g. pick A over B, then later B over A) the algorithm has to make judgment calls and the final ranking can drift slightly from your true preferences.

Rank Artist — Search for an artist by name. Their albums load with checkboxes — pick which ones to include, then hit Start Ranking. Songs from all selected albums are pooled together for one big ranking.

Multiple artists — On the album selection screen, click Add Another Artist. A tab bar appears at the top — your first artist gets its own tab and a new empty tab opens for your next search. Each tab has its own album selection; switch between them at any time and your checkboxes are remembered. The + button in the tab bar adds more artists. Click the ✕ on a tab to remove that artist. When you're ready, Start Ranking combines every selected album across all artist tabs into one single ranking.

Rank Album — Search for a specific album by name (with optional artist and year fields to narrow results). Once you pick an album, it appears as a confirmed tab with its track count. Hit Start Ranking to rank just that album, or add more first.

Multiple albums — After picking your first album, a tab bar appears and the search fields collapse. Your first album appears as a ready tab. Click Add Another Album (or the + in the tab bar) to open a new tab and bring the search back — once you pick a second album it locks in and the search hides again. Each tab shows the album name with a ✕ to remove it. Removing all tabs brings the search back automatically. When ready, Start Ranking merges all queued albums into one combined ranking.

Exclusions — Before or during ranking you can exclude any song via right-click → Exclude Song. Excluded songs are removed from all future comparisons and don't appear in the final results. You can view and re-include them at any time from the results screen.

Choosing — Click (or tap) the song card you prefer. It immediately advances to the next comparison.

Preview — Each card has a play button. Pressing it plays a 30-second audio preview via Apple Music. Only one preview plays at a time — starting a new one stops the previous. Preview availability depends on Apple Music having a clip for that track.

Undo — Changed your mind about the last pick? Hit the Undo button to step back one comparison. You can undo multiple times to retrace your steps.

Skip — If you genuinely cannot choose between two songs, hit Skip. The algorithm will try to infer the answer from your other choices. If it can eventually determine the order transitively, it will — and that comparison won't come back. If it can't infer it, the pair will reappear later.

Right-click a card — Opens a context menu with three options: Mark as Best (instantly places that song at #1, above all others), Mark as Worst (instantly places it last), and Exclude Song (removes it from the ranking entirely).

Smart notifications — When a song is obviously trending toward the top or bottom based on your picks so far, a toast notification appears offering you a shortcut to move it all the way to #1 or last place immediately — saving you many comparisons.

Results screen — Once sorting is complete, your full ranked list appears. Songs are numbered from #1 (best) to last. Each entry shows the album artwork, song title, and album name.

Grid vs List view — Toggle between a compact grid view (artwork-focused) and a detailed list view (with numbering and album info) using the view toggle button.

Progress during sort — While ranking is still in progress you can click Show Results at any time to see the current partial ordering — useful if you want a preview before finishing.

Auto-save — Your session auto-saves to localStorage every 5 comparisons. If you accidentally close the tab or your browser crashes, you can resume from the auto-save panel which shows your recent sessions.

Save Progress JSON — Click Save Progress to download a JSON snapshot of your entire session — all comparisons made so far, current sort state, and the song list. You can load this back in later to continue exactly where you left off.

Load Save — Click Load Save and select a previously exported JSON file to resume a saved session.

Export PDF — Downloads a nicely formatted PDF of your final ranked list, numbered from 1 to last.

Export TXT — Downloads a plain text file of the ranked list — one song per line with its rank number.

Export PNG — Downloads a screenshot of the results page as a PNG image, ready to share.

Copy to Clipboard — Copies the ranked list as plain text directly to your clipboard, ready to paste anywhere. The button turns green briefly to confirm it worked.

Send to Tier List — After completing a ranking, click Send to Tier List to automatically create a new tier list where songs are placed into tiers (S through F) based on their rank percentile. Opens in a new tab in songs mode without affecting your existing tier lists.