Sabrina Carpenter was born on May 11, 1999 in Lehigh, Pennsylvania to David and Elizabeth Carpenter. Sabrina is the youngest of four sisters. She has a half-sister Cayla, a freelance hair stylist eight years older than Sabrina; a biological sister Shannon, who is five years older than Sabrina, and is a dancer, and another biological sister Sarah, who is 3 years older than Sabrina. Sarah played a character named after her (Sarah Carpenter) in Girl Meets World (which Sabrina had a starring role in as Maya Hart), as a classmate of Maya's, whose father is a director. Sarah also provides backing vocals for Sabrina, both in her music and on tour. Nancy Cartwright, who is the voice of Bart Simpson in The Simpsons, is also Sabrina's aunt. 

 

Sabrina has a shih tzu dog named Goodwin. Sabrina's favorite celebrity is Rihanna, and has said that the singer is an inspiration for her own work. Currently, Sabrina is exactly 5" tall, and she also loves bad puns. Her best friend is actress Joey King. She has previously also been best friends with Rowan Blanchard, but the two seem to have grown apart, though this has not been stated by either one of them.

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Sabrina was homeschooled by her parents, and when she was 9 years old, she was a part of The Next Miley Cyrus Project, a singing competition hosted by Miley Cyrus herself, placing third. She has since said in interviews that Miley inspired her to be both an actress and a singer, because she thought it looked fun. When she was 10, she began posting covers on YouTube and released her first-ever single, "Catch My Breath," exclusively to her YouTube channel. On February 6, 2010, Sabrina created a ProBoards forum to share music with her fans, making a total of 107 posts and often responding to fans directly while sharing about her life. Sabrina made her final post on February 12, 2011, responding to a fan, and logged on again for the last time on May 12, 2012, without posting anything. She has since abandoned the forum.

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When she was 12, Sabrina had her first acting role in Law and Order: SVU. In 2012, Sabrina also was cast in three shows: The Goodwin Games on FOX in a recurring role, Gulliver Quinn (an unaired Disney pilot) and the unaired ABC pilot The Unprofessional. In January 2013, Sabrina got her first big break and was cast in the co-starring role of Maya Hart in Disney's Girl Meets World, alongside co-star Rowan Blanchard. Girl Meets World lasted for three seasons on Disney Channel before getting cancelled in January 2017. Girl Meets World premiered on June 27, 2014. Also that year, Sabrina released her debut album's first single, "Can't Blame a Girl For Trying," and released her first EP of the same name on April 8, 2014.

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After the release of her debut EP, Sabrina received critical acclaim and won a Radio Disney Music Award for Best Crush Song with her single "Can't Blame a Girl For Trying." Her first full album Eyes Wide Open, including all 4 songs on her first EP and 8 new songs, was released on April 14, 2015. Later in 2015, Sabrina was cast in the role of Wendy Darling in the Disney play Peter Pan and Tinker Bell: A Pirate's Christmas. In 2016, Sabrina was cast alongside Sofia Carson in the 100th Disney Channel film, a remake of 1987's Adventures in Babysitting. The film was released on June 24, 2016. 

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Sabrina's musical style grew over the years, which is most reflected in her 2016 album EVOLution, having an edgier, more mature sound than her prior lighthearted album Eyes Wide Open. The album was released October 14, 2016 and included 10 songs. While neither of the first two singles "On Purpose" or "All We Have Is Love" charted on radio, "Thumbs" soared up the Pop charts, reaching #28 on CHR/Pop radio. Given the success, she later released "Why" on July 7, 2017, which charted just above it at #27 on Pop in the US. Both singles were certified Gold in the United States.

 

Also in 2016, Sabrina embarked on her first ever world tour, the EVOLution Tour, with her second tour The De-Tour beginning less than two months after the first tour ended in 2017. 

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In 2018, Sabrina and Jonas Blue collaborated for her next single "Alien," which did not impact mainstream pop radio but charted on the Hot Billboard 100 Dance charts. Sabrina also received her first ever big movie role in The Hate U Give as Hailey, a feminist who is clueless about race and is one of the main character (Starr Carter)'s friends. A few days after the release of "Alien," Sabrina was cast in a starring role on the NBC pilot So Close, though the pilot was never aired. In June 2018, Sabrina announced a new two-part album, Singular, and released the first single from the album "Almost Love." Thus far, "Almost Love" has been Sabrina's most successful single, topping the Dance charts, making #21 on Pop Radio airplay, and getting an iHeartRadio "On The Verge" single deal encouraging radio stations to give the song heavier airplay. The full first part of the album, titled Singular Act I, was released on November 9, 2018 featuring 8 songs, alongside the next single "Sue Me." "Sue Me" also topped the Dance Charts and climbed to #31 on Pop. 

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2019 was a big year for Sabrina. In March, she released a collaboration with Alan Walker and Farruko, titled "On My Way," as well as the lead single from the second part of Singular, "Pushing 20." "Exhale" was released as the next single in May, followed by "In My Bed" in June. Finally, Singular Act II was released on July 19, 2019, featuring 9 songs. Sabrina was also cast as Harper Kreyman, the beautiful sister of the main character Jodi, in the Netflix film Tall Girl. 

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Sabrina released what may be the first single, "Honeymoon Fades," on February 14, 2020. Also during that month, Sabrina was cast as Cady Heron in the Broadway play Mean Girls. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sabrina was only able to make two performances, on March 10 and 11, 2020, before theaters shut down. Later in 2020, Sabrina starred in the dance comedy Work It on Netflix, and played Sammy Brown in Clouds, a film based on the true story of Zach Sobiech who dealt with childhood cancer.

 

On January 8, 2021, singer Olivia Rodrigo released the smash hit "Drivers License," featuring the lyrics "you're probably with that blonde girl/who always makes me doubt/she's so much older than me/she's everything I'm insecure about." Many people interpreted these lines as referring to Sabrina, who was currently dating Olivia's ex-boyfriend Joshua Bassett at the time. After a bit of online drama surrounding Sabrina and Olivia, released "Skin" on January 22, 2021, featuring lyrics that seemed strongly directed at Olivia. She also announced she had left Hollywood Records and had moved to the Island label. "Skin" increased the online drama, and prompted a Saturday Night Live skit parodying the situation including a diss of Sabrina. After a long period of silence, Sabrina released "Intro" on August 6, 2021, sending a secret link to those on her email list. The song was released to the public on her social media the next day. "Intro" emotionally detailed a situation with Sabrina's father (on October 13 at 10:15, presumably of 2020), where he walked out on her mother after falling in love with another woman. This may have also explained what many fans felt to be odd behavior on the part of Sabrina with the release of "Skin." On September 9, 2021, Sabrina released the single "Skinny Dipping," the first official single from her fifth studio album. In a interview shortly after, Sabrina detailed her struggles with her previous label Hollywood Records, revealing that she felt the label mismanaged promotional aspects of her albums, and that was forced by individuals at the label into choosing singles that she would not personally have chosen. In terms of the acting side of her career, 2021 also marked the announcement of Sabrina's role in three films, including the Amazon film Emergency, Tall Girl 2, and Alice. Alice is a parody of the classic Alice in Wonderland, which is set at a music festival. However, production on the film was delayed due to safety concerns with the COVID-19 pandemic, given the film is set at a music festival. Sabrina also announced that she will be creating her very own production company with the release of this film.

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On February 11, 2022, Tall Girl 2 was released and Sabrina reprised her role as Jodi's sister Harper Kreyman. One week later, on February 18, 2022, her single "Fast Times" was released. On May 27, 2022, the film Emergency was released on Amazon, with Sabrina starring as the sister of a girl who is found at a college party intoxicated to the point of nearly being unconscious. On June 30, 2022, Sabrina announced her next album Emails I Can't Send would be released on July 15, 2022, with the third single "Vicious" being released on July 1. On July 15, 2022, the music video for "Because I Liked a Boy" was released. "Nonsense" from the album was released as the next single in November 2022, and charted at #56 on the Billboard Hot 100, #10 on pop radio, and #36 on Hot AC radio. On March 17, 2023, Sabrina released a deluxe edition of the album, titled Emails I Can't Send: Fwd, featuring four additional tracks.