In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the detection, location, and classification (DLC) of multiple dipole-like magnetic sources based on magnetic gradient tensor (MGT) data. In these applications, the tilt angle is usually used to detect the number of sources. We found that the tilt angle is only suitable for the scenario where the positive and negative signs of the magnetic sources’ inclination are the same. Therefore, we map the L2 norm of the vertical magnetic gradient tensor on the arctan function, denoted as the VMGT2angle, to detect the number of sources. Then we use the normalized source strength (NSS) to narrow the parameters’ search space and combine the differential evolution (DE) algorithm with the Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) algorithm to solve the sources’ locations and magnetic moments. Simulation experiments and a field demonstration show that the VMGT2angle is insensitive to the sign of inclination and more accurate in detecting the number of magnetic sources than the tilt angle. Meanwhile, our method can quickly locate and classify magnetic sources with high precision.