Water Sort Solver

Stuck on a water sort level? Enter the tubes exactly as your game shows them and this will give you the shortest possible run of pours — or tell you plainly that the level cannot be solved. It is free, there is no sign-up, and nothing leaves your browser.

How to use it

1. Set the number of tubes and how many units tall each one is (most games use 4).
2. Pick a colour from the palette, then click the slots to paint your board. Work bottom to top, exactly as the colours sit in your game. Leave empty tubes empty.
3. Press Solve. You get the fewest pours possible, listed as “tube 3 → tube 7”, numbered left to right from 1.

What the answer means

This uses breadth-first search, which explores every position reachable in one pour, then two, and so on. The first solution it reaches is therefore a genuine minimum — no other order of pours finishes the board faster. That is different from most hints inside these games, which show you a move rather than the best one.

If it reports the level is unsolvable, that is a real result and not a timeout: the search exhausted every reachable position without finding a finished board. This happens more than players expect, because many of these games generate levels at random without ever checking them. Deciding whether one of these puzzles can be solved is NP-complete in general, which is exactly why cheap level generators skip the check.

The rules it assumes

• You may only move the top colour of a tube.
• It may only go onto the same colour, or into a tube that is empty.
• The whole run of that colour moves at once, as much of it as fits.
• You win when every tube is empty or holds one colour and nothing else.

Those are the standard rules, so this works for ball sort, nut sort, hoop sort and the rest as well — under the paint they are the same puzzle.

Frequently asked

How does the water sort solver work?

Enter your tubes exactly as the game shows them, bottom colour first, then press Solve. It searches every legal pour breadth-first, which means the answer it returns is the shortest possible sequence — not just any sequence that happens to work.

Can a water sort level be impossible?

Yes. Plenty of games generate boards randomly and never check them, so genuinely unsolvable levels do ship. If no solution exists this solver tells you outright, rather than leaving you to keep trying.

Is it free, and does my puzzle get uploaded anywhere?

It is free, there is no sign-up, and nothing is uploaded. The whole solver runs in your browser, so your board never leaves your device.

Which games does it work for?

Any puzzle using the standard rules: pour onto a matching top colour or into an empty tube, and the whole matching run moves at once. That covers water sort, ball sort, nut sort, hoop sort and the rest, because they are the same puzzle with different art.

Why does it say my board is invalid?

Usually because a colour does not appear the right number of times. In almost every one of these games each colour has exactly as many units as a tube is tall, so if a colour count does not match the tube height, a colour has been mistyped.