The bundling and sorting process is an important step for the market preparation of Chinese mitten crabs in China. However, this process currently relies heavily on manual labor, leading to high costs, low efficiency and poor consistency. These issues hinder the sustainable development of the mitten crab industry. This study addresses the mechanization of the binding and sorting process for Chinese mitten crab. The physical characteristics of the crabs were first tested to provide essential data for mechanical design. The whole layout of the intelligent sorting and binding machine and its structural design were then studied, including the rotary loading mechanism, “cruciform” strapping mechanism, and “distribution-type” sorting mechanism. Finite element analysis and optimization were conducted on the pinion rack and rotary arm. A prototype of the intelligent bundling and sorting machine was eventually constructed and tested. The results showed that the average completion time of all processes such as feeding, bundling and sorting of one Chinese mitten crab was 65 s, and the success rate of bundling, sorting accuracy and damage rate were 86.67%, 93.33%, and 8.33%, respectively. This study indicates the feasibility of the whole machine for practical binding and sorting of Chinese mitten crabs.