Wordle emerged as one of the world’s most popular word games in 2022 after gaining a cult following, and it was purchased by The New York Times. If you are looking to start playing Wordle but are unsure where to begin, this guide provides step-by-step instructions and a live demonstration of solving the puzzle.
We’ve also prepared the most effective strategies to use for a never-ending streak of solved daily puzzles. While Wordle is a simple game, there are some important nuances to focus on if you want to win in as few attempts as possible.
Wordle rules
In its essence, Wordle is a very simple game – you have to guess a given 5-letter word within 6 attempts. As you make each guess, the game tells you which letters you’ve guessed, misplaced, and which letters don’t belong to the mystery word.
Let’s review the live example together, along with visual feedback from the game. We’ll play one of the past Wordle puzzles – #1111, released on Thursday, 4 July 2024.
1. Start by typing the first 5-letter word
When you visit the Wordle puzzle page, you’ll notice that it consists of 6 rows, each containing 5 boxes. Each box represents 1 letter, and your task is to fill these boxes with letters to make up a 5-letter word.
You start the game by guessing the first 5-letter word by putting the letters in their respective boxes. You can play any word from the list of 12,966 words with 5 letters from the English dictionary.
Let’s start with one of the most commonly used first words in Wordle: SLATE. It contains some of the most frequently featured letters in Wordle solutions and offers the highest probability of guessing a couple of letters right after the first try.
2. See which letters are part of today’s solution
After you’ve made your first guess, the submitted letters’ boxes will change colors from white to one of the following colors, depending on whether the guessed letters are a part of the solution or not:
- Grey-colored letter boxes suggest that the guessed letter(s) is/are not a part of today’s solution.
- Yellow boxes highlight letters that are part of today’s solution but are not in the correct position within the word.
- Yellow-colored letter boxes display letters that are both part of today’s solution and in the right spot.
In this case, 2 letters from SLATE are in our solution, T and E. Both letters are misplaced, so in the next step, we need to try a word that contains both T and E but not S, L, or A.
3. Make the next guess.
Based on the information gained from the first guess, play the next word, making sure that green letters are in their correctly guessed spots, yellow letters are included in the next word but in different positions, and grey letters are not part of the next guess.
Going back to our example, let’s try a word that contains one more vowel than E. You should try to use as many vowels as possible in the early stages of the game (more about that in the strategy section).
Our second guess is DEPOT, as it matches all the requirements set by the first guess. The game returns the following: D, E, and T are both correctly guessed and placed, and P and O are not in the solution.
4. Repeat the process to solve the puzzle within 6 attempts
The game gives you 6 chances to solve the daily puzzle, so make sure you take the most out of each clue. There are some tips and strategies you can use to make sure you’ve maximized each guess, and we’ll discuss them later in this article.
Our Wordle Solver shows us that there are 2 possible Wordle solutions that start with DE and end in T, while not containing S, L, A, P, or O – DEBUT and DEBIT. Let’s try with DEBIT first.
Almost there! We now know the positions of 4 of 5 words in our solution, and even without help from our solver, it’s not hard to come up with the next guess: DEBUT.
We’ve solved Wordle’s puzzle in 4 attempts, which is the average number of attempts people make to solve the daily puzzle. Now that we’ve gone through this example together, you’re ready to start playing Wordle yourself. Good luck!
5. Analyze and share the results
After each game, the daily Wordle solution will be revealed, and players can view Wordlebot, the game’s automated assistant. This helpful tool shows how many games you have played, your win percentage, your current streak, and your maximum streak.
In addition, the Wordlebot will show you how many guesses you took to beat or fail the level. Players can even see their guess distribution, showing how many turns it took to beat each stage.
6. Come back tomorrow for the next round
Wordle resets its daily puzzle every 24 hours, meaning you can try to solve one Wordle puzzle per day and need to come back tomorrow for the next one. Wordle resets the puzzle right at midnight according to your time zone, so the new puzzle will be waiting for you as soon as the next day begins.
Hard mode in Wordle
Wordle has two modes: normal and hard. Playing Wordle in Normal mode allows players to guess any word of their choice from the Wordle dictionary at any time, maximizing the possibility of finding a hint. For those used to playing in normal mode who find it too easy, playing in hard mode offers a different way to play.
To toggle Hard mode on, select the settings icon and switch the “Hard mode” toggle from gray to green before closing the settings screen. Players should note that in order for this to apply, it must be selected before the first guess is made.
When toggled, Hard mode forces players to use any hints revealed in subsequent guesses made. Green letters must be played in their revealed spot, while yellow letters must be played, although they can be in any position.
When playing in this mode, additional thought is needed before making each move, ensuring common word endings such as “ATCH” or “OUND” are not identified before finding the letter in position 1. If these types of endings are found first, the game can be reduced to a game of luck between a large selection of words, potentially wasting guesses and causing a loss.
6 essential strategies to use in every Wordle game
Before playing a new Wordle game, it is worthwhile to have some key strategies in mind to maximize your chance of winning while minimizing the number of guesses to get there. While each player has their own way of approaching the game and each daily puzzle requires a slightly different approach, there are some things you can do every time you play Wordle that will help you most of the time.
1. Choose the best starting word
Even though Wordle is a word game, applying mathematics to solving it is the best possible advice we can give to anyone serious about having a never-ending streak and high score. Above all, how successful you’ll be at solving Wordle day after day depends on the word(s) you choose to start the daily puzzle with.
Without getting into the “boring” lectures in statistics and probability, we’ll just say that you want to eliminate as many words from the play as possible after the first guess. What’s the best way to do it – you play a word containing the most common letters among Wordle answers.
We have the whole analysis of the best Wordle starting words if you’re interested in the whats and hows, but for the purpose of your Wordle strategy, you should open your game with one of the following words (ordered by priority):
- SANER
- AROSE
- PARSE
- RINSE
- SONAR
- CASTE
- PALER
- LEANT
- ROAST
- SAUCE
You can find more viable options in the above-mentioned analysis, but you might already start to notice some patterns among the best starting words. For example, you’ll notice that most of them contain A, E, and R. If one of these three letters is missing, you’ll notice S instead of it.
This is because these are the most common letters in Wordle solutions, both past and future.
By using these common letters in starting words, we eliminate most words from the table and make the guessing game easier. Just for comparison, playing
2. Identify vowels as early as possible
Along with the best starting word, this is the single most important step in finding a Wordle answer in the fewest attempts. The fastest way to get there is to identify vowels as early as possible, ideally within the first two attempts.
Over 99% of all Wordle words contain at least one vowel, so it’s easy to realize why knowing which one should be your priority. Whether you have a prepared 2-word combo to start every game with, or play a read and react game after the first attempt, just make sure you cover all the vowels.
3. Don’t forget repeating and rate letters, common endings
What our analysis of the most difficult Wordle words to guess show that players have a lot of trouble with 3 types of words:
- Words with double/repeating letters
- Words with rare letters, like J and Z
- Words with common endings, most of all -ER
If you’ve listened ot our advice on the best starting words, then having any of the first two groups as a guess doesn’t make sense. But that doesn’t mean you should completely forget about those words.
Once you’re into your third guess and on, if you’ve covered all the vowels and the most common consonants, but still missing some letters, it’s time to start considering if the solution has either a repeating letter (or double letter) or some of the less-used letters, like mentioned J and Z.
On the other hand, if you figured out that the solution ends in -ER, good luck! There are 143 of those words accepted by Wordle, so sometimes you’ll just run out of attempts if you don’t have luck. In that case, the best thing to help yourself is to see some tips and hints about today’s solution.
4. Take into account past answers
If you want to be a true Wordle master, there’s no space for wrong moves. And one of the worst cases in that regard is guessing a word that has already been a Wordle solution. As of February 2026, only one word has been a Wordle solution multiple times.
Since well over 1,000 daily puzzles have been played so far, keeping them all in your head is not a burden you should carry. Luckily, we got you covered – you can easily check if a word you want to guess next has already been a solution on our past Wordle answers page.
Once all available Wordle solutions have been exhausted, we may see the same answers again if the creators decide to reset or add new words to the list. However, don’t expect that to happen before 2028.
*Note: While our past Wordle answers page contains the answer from yesterday’s puzzle, we also provide its hints and tips on yesterday’s Wordle page.
5. Try to avoid grey letters
After a letter has turned gray, it signifies to the player that it is not present in the solution and should not be used again. Instead, players should maximize the 5 letters they can use in each turn to find new hints that can give them more information about the solution.
This is not always as easy as it sounds, though, especially early in the game. On top of that, some experts will advise you to play a 2-word combo to start the game, regardless of the feedback after the first guess, and often a grey letter will be used. So it will ultimately depend on your Wordle strategy.
But as a general rule, try to avoid using grey letters as much as possible.
6. Don’t rush
Finally, you should always keep in mind that each challenge lasts for 24 hours. Given the long timeframe for completing each level, you should not feel pressured by time constraints and can carefully consider each turn.
If you can’t think of a word to play next or you’re not happy with any that does come to your mind, just let it “mature” for a little while. Maybe you’ll hear the perfect word from someone, maybe you’ll read it somewhere. You never know when inspiration comes.
Need more help with Wordle?
Solving a daily puzzle can be challenging sometimes, and you need a bit of a push to come up with the next guess. It’s not easy to hold almost 13,000 words with 5 letters in your memory, so it’s not bad to have a place to go through all of them, filter them out by letters you guessed, remove the ones that are not part of the solution, etc.
Even with the strategies we shared with you, solving every puzzle day after day is hard. So if consistency is what you’re craving for and desire to never end your streak, use our Wordle Solver. By simply placing green, yellow, and grey letters, the tool will quickly generate all potential answers to the puzzle.
If you’re at your sixth guess and have more than one potential solution, take a look at some clues that will push you towards choosing the correct word, without ever needing to actually cheat and look at what the solution is.
FAQ
How many words are in Wordle’s database?
When it comes to words that can be considered potential Wordle puzzle solutions, we need to distinguish between the list of words that Wordle allows as guesses and the list of words that Wordle allows as answers. The former is much larger and considers every 5-letter word in the dictionary, while the latter is much smaller.
So, how many 5-letter words are in Wordle’s database? You can guess any of the 12,966 words with 5 letters from the English dictionary, and Wordle will accept them as valid guesses. Originally, only 2,309 of these Words made it to the list of potential Wordle solutions. However, game creators occasionally add new words to this list, so this number increased over time and will keep increasing.
You can keep track of all words eligible as potential Wordle answers from our Wordle dictionary.
How to play Wordle on iPhone or Android?
One key factor that has enabled Wordle to maintain its playability across generations is its availability across portable and non-portable devices. For mobile or tablet players:
- Navigate to the App Store (iPhone) or Google Play Store (Android) on your mobile device.
- Search for “Wordle” in the search bar.
- Download the official “NYT Games: Word Games & Sudoku” application.
- Open the application.
- Choose to create a new account, login to an existing account or play without an account.
- Find Wordle in the “games” tab and tap the icon to begin playing.
Note: Having an account in the official app allows players to track their progress, check a variety of game statistics, compete against other players through score sharing, and play any missed puzzles from the archive.
How was Wordle created?
The story behind Wordle is an unlikely tale of digital innovation and creativity that only became a reality due to a change in its creators’ lifestyle. Josh Wardle and his partner, Palak Shah, found time to develop an old, unfinished version of the game before finding enough success to sell it on.
- The prototype of Wordle was originally created by software engineer Josh Wardle in 2013, with the name of the game being a play on his last name.
- During COVID-19, he had been playing many word games alongside his partner, Palak Shah.
- This period of time encouraged him to create a new game that they could play together.
- In January 2021, he returned to his previous prototype to continue its development.
- As part of this process, Shah was tasked with the review of 12,000 five-letter words in the English language.
- She then narrowed these down to 2,500 well-known words that would be appropriate for Wordle’s daily puzzle.
- For the first half of 2021, the couple played the game in secret before introducing it to family members.
- During October 2021, it was finally made widely-available through Wardle’s own website, Powerlanguage.
- It was available to play without advertisements, and it was not created with the purpose of making money.
- However, upon the game finding widespread popularity, it was sold to The New York Times Company.
- Wardle has also mentioned that he never wanted Wordle to become a full-time job for himself.