Water Sort

How Water Sort works

In short: Pour the colours between tubes until each tube holds just one. The play area is a row of tubes part-filled with stacked colour segments, it is rated relaxing but tricky, and every deal is generated by reverse moves, so it is always solvable.

Key facts about Water Sort

Learn Water Sort in five steps

The goal

Sort the colours so that each tube ends up holding just one colour, filled to the level it started at, with any leftover tubes standing empty.

Pouring

Tap a tube to lift it, then tap another to pour. The top colour of the first tube flows across, and it moves as a group when several of that colour are stacked together.

The pouring rule

Liquid only pours onto an empty tube or onto the very same colour already on top, and never past the top of the receiving tube. If those conditions fail, the pour simply will not happen.

Keeping space

An empty tube is your most useful tool. Use it to park a colour for a moment so you can reach the ones trapped beneath it, then pour that colour back where it belongs.

Winning

The deal is solved when every colour is gathered into its own tube. If you run out of legal pours, reset and try a different order of moves.

Where Water Sort came from

Water Sort became a mobile hit around 2019 and 2020, when versions titled Water Sort Puzzle and the near-identical Ball Sort Puzzle spread rapidly through app stores. Their soothing colours and one-finger controls made them a natural fit for short breaks, and clips of tricky deals circulated widely on social media.

The mechanic itself is much older than the trend. Sorting objects between a few limited containers is a classic idea in both recreational puzzles and computer science, where arranging items using a small number of stacks and a spare slot is a well-worn exercise. Water Sort simply gave that abstract idea a friendly, liquid-filled skin.

Because a fresh deal can be generated by scrambling a solved board, the format is endlessly replayable and always fair, which is a large part of why it stayed popular long after the first viral wave passed.

Tips to solve Water Sort faster

💡 Best move: Best move: keep at least one tube empty whenever you can, because a free tube is the space you need to unbury a trapped colour and undo a jam.

1. Pour onto a matching colour before you pour into an empty tube, since filling your empties too early wastes the very space that lets you sort.
2. Look at what sits underneath before you tip a tube, because a pour that exposes a colour you can immediately place is worth far more than one that buries something useful.
3. Finish gathering a colour completely before you start splitting another apart, so half-sorted tubes do not pile up and block each other.
4. Only pour a colour when the whole group can move at once, or when the move clearly opens up progress, since single dribbles that strand a colour are usually a trap.
5. If you stall, look for two tubes whose top colours match; joining them often frees a slot that unlocks the rest of the board.

Sharper tactics for Water Sort

1. Read the board as a set of buried colours. The colour with the most layers sitting on top of it is your real bottleneck, so aim your early pours at digging it out.
2. Treat empty tubes as a budget you can overspend. Filling one too soon can leave you with no legal pour at all, a soft lock that only a reset will cure.
3. Plan pours in pairs. A single move often looks pointless until you see that it sets up a second pour which consolidates two half-tubes into one.
4. Prefer moves that increase the number of matching tops on the board, because every same-colour top is a future landing spot that keeps your options open.
5. Near the end, count the colours that still need a home against the empty tubes you have left. If they do not balance, backtrack now rather than pour yourself into a dead end.

Mistakes that trip people up

• Filling your empty tubes too early - keep at least one tube free as working space, because empties are what let you unbury a trapped colour.
• Pouring without checking what sits underneath - a pour that buries a colour you needed costs you, so dig out useful colours rather than covering them.
• Splitting a new colour before finishing the last - gather each colour completely first so half-sorted tubes do not pile up and jam the board.
• Pouring a colour onto a mismatched top - liquid only stacks on the same colour or into an empty tube, so line up matching tops before you tip.

Ways to play Water Sort

Water Sort

The original tube-and-liquid version, where matching colours pour together and empty tubes give you the room you need to sort.

Ball Sort

The same puzzle with stacked coloured balls instead of liquid; only the top ball of each tube can move, but the sorting logic is identical.

More colours and tubes

Larger deals add extra colours and tubes, deepening the buried stacks and forcing you to plan more pours in advance.

Limited-move challenges

Timed or move-capped versions push the calm base game toward a race, rewarding the shortest sorting sequence rather than a leisurely solve.

Water Sort questions, answered

Still curious about Water Sort? Browse the full puzzle FAQ, look up a term such as color puzzle in the puzzle glossary, or compare Water Sort with the other games in the rules for every puzzle.

Last updated 2026-07-04.