Random Team / Group Divider
Splits your list into balanced teams.
Built and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software · Last checked
Drop in a roster of names and the Random Team / Group Divider shuffles everyone and splits them into evenly sized teams. It's ideal for gym class, pickup games, group projects, or party games where you want fair, drama-free sides. Choose a fixed number of teams or a fixed size per team, and every group ends up within one member of the same size.
Paste. Paste your list of names, one per line, into the input box.
0 items
Click Make teams to see a result.
Options
Recent results
- No history yet.
How it works
- Paste. Paste your list of names, one per line, into the input box.
- Choose. Set the number of teams or the size per team in the options.
- Make. Click Make teams to shuffle and split everyone into balanced groups.
- Reroll. Click again any time to get a fresh random split.
About the Random Team / Group Divider
Number of teams or size of team
The Mode option decides what your number means. In count mode it is how many teams you want and the tool spreads everyone between them; in size mode it is how many people go in each team and the tool makes as many as that requires.
The difference shows up in the remainder. Twenty-six students into four teams gives two teams of seven and two of six — the extras are distributed rather than piled into one group. Twenty-six students in teams of four gives six teams of four and one of two, and a group of two is a different experience from a group of four. Neither behaviour is wrong; they answer different questions, and the one you want depends on whether the constraint is the number of tasks or the number of chairs.
Custom labels
The Labels field takes a comma-separated list and renames the teams in order — "Red, Blue, Green, Yellow" instead of Team 1 to Team 4. Supply fewer labels than teams and the remainder fall back to numbered names, which is a graceful failure rather than an error.
Worth doing more often than people do. A class remembers being on the Green team; nobody remembers being on Team 3, and the numbering quietly implies a ranking that colours do not.
Reproducible splits
Setting a Seed makes the division repeatable: same list, same settings, same seed, same teams. That matters when the split has to survive a page reload, or when you want to generate the same teams on a different device — a seed written in your lesson plan reproduces exactly the groups you planned around.
Without a seed every run is fresh. That is usually what you want in a classroom, where the fairness comes precisely from nobody being able to predict it.
Frequently asked questions
How is it balanced?
Names are shuffled and then dealt out round-robin, so every team lands within one person of the same size.
Should I pick teams or sizes?
Pick the number of teams if you want a fixed count of groups. Pick size-per-team if you want fixed-size groups, and the team count is calculated for you.
Is the split actually random?
Yes. The shuffle uses your browser's Web Crypto API for cryptographically sound, unbiased randomness, so no name has an edge.
Are my names sent anywhere?
No. The tool runs entirely in your browser and works offline, so your roster is never uploaded to a server.
Related randomizers
Further reading
- A snake draft evens the picks, not the totals
The Weighted Team Generator drafts serpentine — best player to team one, next to team two, then back again. It is a good heuristic and it is not an optimiser. Here is when it lands short, why re-rolling will not save you, and what to do instead.
- Picking a group-size range for the activity, not the headcount
Most people set a group-size range by dividing their headcount and guessing. Here's how to pick min and max based on what the activity actually needs — with real ranges for book clubs, hackathons, classroom stations, and party games.
- Running a category sprint: the outburst-style game that needs zero prep
Name as many pizza toppings, cities, or 90s cartoons as you can before the clock runs out. Here's how a category sprint timer works, which category pack to pick for your crowd, and how to turn one round into a full party game.
- Splitting a list into groups that don't all have to match
Not every activity needs equal-sized teams — sometimes you want groups of three here, five there, and no awkward leftover pair. Here's how a variable-size group splitter handles the range instead of forcing one fixed number.
- Pair everyone up without landing the same partners again
Partner work falls apart when the same two people keep getting matched. Here's how a random pair generator splits a group into twos, handles the odd person out, and remembers past pairings so this week's partners are new.
- Draw a random-sized sample from a list, not just a fixed number
Sometimes you don't want exactly five — you want "a few, but I don't want to decide how many." Here's how a random subset picker draws both the size and the members of a sample, and when that beats picking a fixed count.
- Split a video call into breakout rooms in one click
Manually dragging twenty names into Zoom breakout rooms is the slowest part of any workshop. Here's how a breakout room assigner splits the roster instantly, keeps the pairs you need together, and stops the same people clustering every round.
- Build balanced teams that don't turn into a blowout
A purely random split can dump all your strongest players on one side. Here's how a balanced team generator spreads people evenly by skill, level, or any tag you choose — so the teams are fair and the game stays close.
- A random seating chart that actually mixes people up
Friends cluster, strangers hover by the door, and the same three people end up together every time. Here's how a random seating chart breaks up the cliques fairly — and the one table-size detail that decides whether anyone sits alone.
- Scattergories without the arguments: fair letters, honest answers, and a timer that ends it
Scattergories lives or dies on three things: a letter nobody can call rigged, categories everyone can actually answer, and a clock that stops the round before the table starts negotiating. Here's how to run it cleanly with just a phone.
- Seeding a tournament bracket fairly (and why byes are trickier than they look)
Throwing names into a single-elimination bracket sounds simple until you hit an odd number of players, byes that hand someone a free win, or a seeding that pits your two best players in round one. Here's how to do it right.
- Picking random teams without starting a fight
Randomising teams sounds easy: shuffle, deal, done. In practice you need to think about balance, locked groups, varying sizes, and the friend who always ends up on the same side. Here's how we handle it.