Water Sort Puzzle Solver

Tell us what's in each flask, and we'll return the shortest sequence of pours to clear the level — including stages where the bottom layers are still hidden.

Start Solving

Stuck? Enter Your Puzzle

Select the focused tube then tap a color — or use number keys. Hit ✨ Solve when ready.

⚠️Add some colors to your tubes to start solving.

Puzzle Board

#0
#1
#2
#3
#4

What Is a Water Sort Puzzle?

Water Sort Puzzle (popularized by IEC Global's Water Sort Puzzle and Sort Water Color clones with hundreds of millions of installs) replaces discrete game pieces with stacked layers of colored liquid in glass flasks. Its defining mechanic is the pour rule: when you transfer liquid from flask A to flask B, every consecutive layer of the same color on top of A moves together — provided B has matching color on top (or is empty) and enough headroom. A single well-placed pour can dump four units of green at once; the wrong target can lock up your only workspace by mixing colors that can no longer be separated. ChromaOracle simulates every legal pour with breadth-first search and returns the path that uses the fewest pours.

How Do You Solve a Water Sort Puzzle Online?

  1. 1Add the same number of flasks the level shows you, with the matching capacity. Most Water Sort levels use 4-unit flasks; harder stages use 5 or more.
  2. 2For each flask, tap a color or press 1–9 to add a liquid layer from bottom to top, in the exact order they appear in your game. If a layer is covered or unknown, press ? — Mystery Mode will resolve it.
  3. 3Click Solve. ChromaOracle returns the minimum number of pours needed to clear every flask. Step through the playback to see exactly which flask pours into which — mirroring the moves you make in-game.

Water Sort Strategy: Beating Hard Levels

Treat one empty flask as your scratchpad and protect it. The moment you pour a color into it that you can't quickly reuse, you've lost your only swing space — and most stuck levels start there.
Always prefer pours that move two or more matching layers at once. The pour rule is what makes Water Sort faster than Ball Sort; if you find yourself making lots of single-unit transfers, you're probably solving suboptimally.
When the bottom of a flask is hidden, mark unknown layers with ? and use Mystery Mode. The solver tests every possible arrangement of the hidden colors and returns only moves that stay safe across all of them — so you can act now without revealing.

Water Sort Solver FAQ

How does the pour rule work in Water Sort?

A pour transfers the top layer of liquid from flask A into flask B. If the layer beneath in A is the same color, it moves too, and so on, until you hit a different color or run out of headroom in B. The destination must be empty, or its top color must match the color being poured. This multi-layer behavior is what makes Water Sort distinct from Ball Sort: a single legal pour can move four units of red at once, where Ball Sort would need four separate moves.

Why won't my Water Sort pour go through even though the colors match?

Three common reasons. First, the destination doesn't have enough empty space — three layers of red can't pour into a flask with only one unit of headroom. Second, the top color of the destination doesn't match — even if a matching layer exists below, only the top layer counts as the pour target. Third, the source has the destination's color buried under another color — only consecutive same-color layers from the top can pour. ChromaOracle's solver respects all three constraints when generating moves.

How do I solve a Water Sort level when some layers are hidden?

Use Mystery Mode. Where you'd normally pick a color, press ? to mark a layer as unknown. When you Solve, ChromaOracle generates every valid arrangement of the hidden colors, runs the solver against each one, and returns only the moves that are correct in every possible reality. Make those guaranteed-safe moves, reveal the next layer once it surfaces, then re-solve.

Is the Water Sort solver free? Do I need an account?

Free, no sign-up, no install, no ads. ChromaOracle runs entirely in your browser, so your puzzle data never leaves your device. It works on phones (iOS and Android), tablets, and desktops with any modern browser.

Why does ChromaOracle say my Water Sort level is unsolvable?

Some Water Sort configurations are mathematically impossible from the state on screen — no sequence of legal pours can ever separate the colors. This is rare in official levels but common in user-modded packs or older builds. If your level is from a real game and the solver reports unsolvable, double-check that you entered each flask bottom-to-top in the correct order — a single inverted layer can flip a solvable puzzle into an impossible one.

How many pours does an average Water Sort level take?

Early levels (4–6 flasks, 2–3 colors) usually solve in 6–10 pours. Mid-game levels with 8–10 flasks and 6 colors typically need 18–30 pours. End-game stages with hidden layers can require 40 or more. The pour rule keeps Water Sort move counts lower than Ball Sort on equivalent layouts, since multi-layer pours collapse what would be several ball moves into one.

Does ChromaOracle find the absolute shortest Water Sort solution?

Yes. The solver uses breadth-first search, which guarantees the global minimum number of pours — not just any working solution. If a 12-pour path exists, you'll never get a 13-pour answer. The tradeoff is search time on very large boards (16+ flasks), where the solver may take a few seconds to fully explore the space.

How is Water Sort actually different from Ball Sort?

Same goal, different physics. Water Sort uses the pour rule, so a single move can shift one to four units of the same color at once. Ball Sort moves exactly one ball per move, so the same logical sort takes more total moves. Visually, Water Sort uses transparent flasks with stacked liquid bands; Ball Sort uses opaque tubes with discrete spheres. Strategically, Water Sort rewards setting up multi-layer pours; Ball Sort rewards keeping the top of each tube tactically positioned. ChromaOracle solves both with the same engine — the pour rule is just an extension in the move generator.

Learn More

Water Sort Strategy Guide

Beginner to advanced techniques for mastering Water Sort.

Color Sort Puzzle Variants

Compare Water Sort, Ball Sort, Nut Sort, and more in one place.

Also solves Nut Sort, Ball Sort, and Hoop Sort