How to Play NYT Connections: Complete Beginner's Guide
NYT Connections is a daily puzzle from The New York Times that challenges you to sort 16 words into four groups of four, each sharing a hidden theme. The game drops a fresh puzzle every day at midnight ET, and your goal is to find all four groups without making more than four mistakes. Whether you're picking it up for the first time or just want to understand the rules more clearly, this guide covers everything you need to get started.
The Basic Objective
You're presented with a 4×4 grid of 16 words. Your job is to identify four groups of four words that each share a common thread. That thread could be a category of things (types of fish, capital cities), a word that can follow or precede each of the four words (e.g., all can follow 'sun'), or a more abstract pattern like hidden words inside each word. Tap or click four words to select them, then hit Submit. If you're right, those words leave the board and the category is revealed. If you're wrong, you lose one of your four allowed mistakes and the words return to the grid.
The Four Color-Coded Difficulty Levels
Every puzzle has exactly four categories, color-coded by difficulty. Yellow is the easiest — these groupings tend to be straightforward synonyms or tightly related words, like BIG, LARGE, HUGE, ENORMOUS. Green is moderate — still accessible, but with a slightly less obvious link. Blue is tricky — categories may involve wordplay, less common knowledge, or multiple-meaning words. Purple is the hardest — the connection is typically abstract, involving hidden words, phrase completions, homophones, or lateral thinking that is designed to fool you. Crucially, the colors are not shown to you in advance. You only see what color a group is once you've correctly identified it.
Mistakes and How They Work
You are allowed exactly four mistakes across the entire game. Each wrong submission costs one mistake, and after the fourth, the game ends and all answers are revealed. You cannot submit the same four words twice in a row — the game prevents you from wasting a turn on a repeat guess. When you're one word off, the game tells you 'One away!' which means exactly three of your four selected words belong to the same group. This is extremely useful feedback that you should act on carefully rather than immediately swapping a word at random.
The Shuffle and Deselect Buttons
At the bottom of the board are two utility buttons. Shuffle rearranges the remaining words randomly — you can press it as many times as you like, and there's no penalty. Many players find that a fresh visual layout breaks mental blocks and reveals groupings they missed. Deselect All clears your current selection so you can start a new set of four. Neither button costs a mistake, so use them freely whenever you feel stuck.
When the Game Ends
Connections ends in one of two ways: you correctly identify all four groups and win, or you use up all four mistakes and the game reveals the answers. After finishing, you'll see a color-coded summary of your guesses — a shareable result similar to Wordle — showing the order in which you solved the categories and where you went wrong. The puzzle resets daily at midnight ET, and your streak counter tracks how many consecutive days you've completed the puzzle successfully.
FAQ
Is NYT Connections free to play?
Yes, NYT Connections is free to play daily on the New York Times website and app. Some NYT Games content requires a subscription, but Connections has remained freely accessible.
How many puzzles can you play per day?
There is one official NYT Connections puzzle per day. It resets at midnight ET. Third-party sites like Connections Unlimited offer additional unofficial puzzles if you want more practice.
Does the order in which you solve groups matter?
The order doesn't affect whether you win or lose, but solving easier groups first (Yellow, then Green) is the most reliable strategy because it removes red herrings from the board before you tackle the harder Blue and Purple categories.
What does 'One away' mean?
'One away' means three of your four selected words belong to the same group, but your fourth pick is wrong. The game uses this message to let you know you're close without telling you which word is the intruder.
Can two words from different groups look like they belong together?
Yes — this is intentional. Puzzle editor Wyna Liu deliberately places words that seem to cluster together thematically but actually belong to different groups. Spotting these red herrings is a core part of the challenge.