Random letter generator: pick a letter from A to Z
This random letter generator picks a letter of the alphabet for you. Tap once and a big letter reel rolls from A to Z, slows down and lands. It is made for word games, classrooms and any moment you need a letter nobody chose on purpose. It is free, there is no account and no app to install, and it works in the browser on a phone, tablet or computer.
How to use the letter picker
The page reads like a sentence: “Pick a letter from all letters”. Tap each part to change it.
- How many letters. Tap “a letter” to pick 1, 2, 3 or 5 letters at once.
- Which letters. Tap “all letters” to choose from the whole alphabet, from vowels only (A, E, I, O, U), or from consonants only.
- Roll the reel. Tap the letter or press the Space bar. The reel spins through the alphabet and stops on the result.
- No repeats. Turn on this switch in the bottom bar and the tool works like a bag of letter tiles. Each letter comes out once, until every letter has been used. Then the bag refills and starts again.
- Lowercase. Turn on this switch to show small letters (a, b, c) instead of capitals. Handy for young readers.
- Use your voice. Tap the microphone in the header and say “pick a letter” or “pick a vowel”.
Recent letters stay in a history on the page, so you can see what has already come up. The Sound button in the bottom bar turns the reel sound on or off, and the full screen button in the header shows the letter big enough for a whole classroom.
Ideas for a random letter
- Category word games. Pick a letter, then race to name an animal, a city, a food and a band that start with it. Turn on No repeats so the same letter does not come back in the next round.
- Alphabet learning. Show a letter in full screen and ask children to say its name, its sound or a word that starts with it. Switch to lowercase to practice small letters.
- Initials. Pick two or three letters as initials for a story character, a pet name game or a guessing challenge.
- Team names. Pick a letter and have each team find a name that starts with it.
- Writing and drawing prompts. Write a sentence where every word starts with the same letter, or draw something that begins with it.
For whole words, try the random word generator. To split a class into groups for the game, use the random team generator, and the random number generator can pick a time limit or a score to reach.
One thing this tool is not for: passwords. A few random letters are fine for games and ideas, but a strong password needs a dedicated password manager or generator.
Is every letter equally likely?
Yes. Letters are drawn with your browser's cryptographic random generator, the same kind of source used for security. Each letter in the chosen set has the same chance.
| Letter set | Letters in the set | Chance for each letter |
|---|---|---|
| All letters | 26 | 1 in 26 (about 3.8%) |
| Vowels | 5 (A, E, I, O, U) | 1 in 5 (20%) |
| Consonants | 21 | 1 in 21 (about 4.8%) |
With No repeats off, each pick is independent, so the same letter can come up twice in a row. With No repeats on, letters that are already out of the bag cannot come up again until it refills. The letters left in the bag are still equally likely.
Note that a random letter is not the same as a letter from a random word. In English text, E is the most common letter, while letters like Q, X and Z are rare. This generator ignores all that and treats Z exactly like E. Some players of category games simply pick again when a very hard letter comes up, as a house rule.
A fun alphabet fact
A sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet is called a pangram. The best known one in English is “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”, long used to show off typefaces and to practice typing. Want a challenge? Turn on No repeats, pick 5 letters, and try to write a short sentence that uses them all.
Your settings stay in your own browser, nothing is sent to a server, and the generator keeps working offline once the page has loaded.