Ready-made wheels

A free wheel spinner for any list

WheelTwirl is a wheel spinner and random name picker in one: put any list on the wheel, spin, and let it pick. Teachers use it to call on students, streamers to draw giveaway winners, friends to decide who goes first. It works like a classic wheel picker, with a few extras: weights for entries that should come up more often, a results list, team splitting, and an import that reads names from almost any file.

How to use the wheel

Type your entries in the box on the right, one per line, or paste a whole list from a spreadsheet. The wheel updates as you type and holds up to 1,000 entries. Click the wheel, press Spin, or press Ctrl+Enter, and the winner pops up when it stops.

Picking several winners? Press Remove in the winner box, or turn on “Remove the winner after each spin” under Options, and keep spinning until you have everyone you need. Every spin is logged in the Results tab with the time, and Copy puts the list on your clipboard.

Import names from any file

Press Import names, or drop a file anywhere on the page. It reads Excel and Google Sheets downloads, CSV, Word, PDF, PowerPoint, plain text and contact cards, and it can read a photo or screenshot of a list. AI picks out the people and skips headings, numbers, emails and grades. If a sheet has first and last names in separate columns, it joins them.

Nothing goes on the wheel until you approve it. You get the list to tick, untick and fix, and any name the AI spelled differently from your file is flagged and left unticked. Prefer to keep a file on your computer? Turn “Clean up with AI” off and it is read only in your browser. More about importing.

Split a list into teams

The Teams tab shuffles your entries and deals them out evenly. Choose a number of teams, or a number of people per team, and press Make teams. It is the quickest way to make groups for a class, a five-a-side game or a quiz night.

Save and share wheels

The wheel you are working on is kept in your browser, so it is still there when you come back. The Saved tab holds as many named wheels as you like, such as one per class. Share link copies a link with the whole wheel built into it: whoever opens it gets your exact list, and nothing is stored on our side.

Is it really random?

Yes. Before the wheel starts to turn, the winner is picked with crypto.getRandomValues, the cryptographic random number generator built into your browser, and every slice has the same chance. The spin then lands on that slice. Where the wheel was resting, how hard you clicked and who spun it make no difference.

Questions

Is it free?: Yes, all of it, with no account and no sign-up.
Does it work on phones and in fullscreen?: Yes. Tap the wheel to spin. The fullscreen button hides the editing panel for projectors and TVs, and on iPhone it switches to a full-page view.
Can I make one entry more likely?: Add it more than once. Each line is one equal slice, so a name listed twice has twice the chance.
Where are my lists stored?: Only in your own browser. Clearing your browser data removes them.

Spin the Wheel