Letter Frequency Counter
Count how often each letter appears in your text. The letter frequency counter shows every letter from A to Z with its count and percentage, compares your text with normal English letter frequency, and lists the letters you didn’t use, for codebreaking, word games and language study.
- A–Z frequency table
- Compared with English
- Stays on your device
Letter frequency table
Each letter with its count and its share of all letters, next to how often it appears in English overall.
| Letter | Count | Share | In English |
|---|
Your letter counts appear here.
How to find letter frequency
Getting a letter frequency count takes three steps.
-
Paste your text
A paragraph, a cipher you’re solving or a whole book chapter. Longer texts give steadier percentages.
-
Choose the options
By default é counts as e and capitals are counted with small letters. Untick or tick the options to keep them apart.
-
Read the table
Every letter with its count and share of all letters, beside its usual share in English. Sort by frequency or A to Z, then copy or download.
Letters missing from your text still appear in the table with a count of 0, so you can see at a glance which letters you never used.
English letter frequency
How often each letter appears in English, from Peter Norvig’s count of about 744 billion words in the Google Books corpus.
| Letter | Share | Letter | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| E | 12.49% | M | 2.51% |
| T | 9.28% | F | 2.40% |
| A | 8.04% | P | 2.14% |
| O | 7.64% | G | 1.87% |
| I | 7.57% | W | 1.68% |
| N | 7.23% | Y | 1.66% |
| S | 6.51% | B | 1.48% |
| R | 6.28% | V | 1.05% |
| H | 5.05% | K | 0.54% |
| L | 4.07% | X | 0.23% |
| D | 3.82% | J | 0.16% |
| C | 3.34% | Q | 0.12% |
| U | 2.73% | Z | 0.09% |
The 12 most common letters spell the old printers’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU, close to this order.
How the English match is worked out
The counter compares the share of each letter A–Z in your text with the English figures above. It adds up how far apart the two sets of percentages are and shows the overlap as Match with English: 100% would be an identical mix of letters.
- Ordinary English prose of a paragraph or more usually scores close to 90%.
- Other languages score lower: Spanish has more A and O, German more N and E, and Italian more A, I and O.
- Short texts vary a lot, so the match only appears once you’ve typed 50 letters, and the verdict once you’ve typed 100.
A low match in an English text can also mean a cipher, a list of names or codes, or text with an unusual subject.
Letter frequency for codebreaking
Frequency analysis is the oldest way to break a substitution cipher, where each letter is swapped for another. The first known description was written in the 9th century by the Arab scholar Al-Kindi.
To try it on a puzzle:
- Paste the coded message and sort the table by frequency.
- The most common symbol is probably E, then T, A and O.
- Look for one-letter words (usually a or I) and common three-letter words (often the or and).
- Swap in your guesses and refine them as words appear.
Frequency analysis works best on longer messages; a short message may not follow the usual pattern at all.
Ways to use a letter frequency counter
Letter frequencies are useful well beyond secret codes.
| Use | What the frequency shows |
|---|---|
| Cryptograms and escape-room puzzles | Which coded letters are most likely to be E, T and A. |
| Word games | Common letters to try first, and rare letters (J, Q, X, Z) to plan around. |
| Language learning | How a language’s letter mix differs from English. |
| Typing and keyboard design | Which letters are typed most and should be easiest to reach. |
| Writing challenges | Check a lipogram, a text that avoids a letter such as E entirely. |
| Teaching statistics | A simple, real data set to chart and compare. |
Letter frequency counter FAQ
What is the most common letter in English?
E, at about 12.5% of all letters, followed by T (9.3%) and A (8.0%). The rarest is Z, at about 0.09%.
How is letter frequency calculated?
Each letter’s count is divided by the total number of letters and multiplied by 100. Spaces, digits and punctuation are left out.
Are upper and lower case counted together?
Yes, by default. Tick “Count upper and lower case separately” to see A and a as different rows.
What happens to accented letters?
By default é, è and ê are counted as e, and ñ as n. Untick that option to list each accented letter separately.
Does it work for other alphabets?
Yes. Letters in Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic and other scripts are counted and listed. The English comparison only uses A to Z.
What is ETAOIN SHRDLU?
The 12 most common letters in English in roughly frequency order. It was the order of keys on Linotype typesetting machines.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. The letters are counted in your browser and your text never leaves your device.
Sources and references
- English Letter Frequency Counts: Mayzner Revisited, Peter Norvig
- Frequency analysis, Wikipedia
- Letter frequency, Wikipedia
More text analysis tools
- Letters Letter Counter Count only the letters in a text: no spaces, numbers or punctuation. Open tool
- Vowels Vowel Counter Count the vowels a, e, i, o and u, with an option for y. Open tool
- Distinct Unique Character Counter List every distinct character with its Unicode code point, and check for pangrams. Open tool
- Frequency Word Frequency Counter Rank every word by how often it appears, with counts and density. Open tool