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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →NYT Connections gives you 16 words and asks you to divide them into four groups of four. The groups are color-coded by difficulty: Yellow is easiest, followed by Green, Blue and Purple. A win, according to The New York Times’ official definition, means completing the puzzle with fewer than four mistakes—that is, zero, one, two or three mistakes. The daily puzzle appears at midnight in your own time zone, and a streak is preserved only when you finish that day’s puzzle before your local midnight.
This guide explains the rules, the mistake threshold, streak timing, archive statistics, official and community help, subscriber-only analysis, and what published accuracy figures actually mean.
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How NYT Connections works
Every puzzle presents a 4-by-4 set of 16 words. Your task is to select four words that share a category, submit that group, and repeat until all 16 words have been assigned to four groups. Each category contains exactly four words.
The New York Times Help Center says that every puzzle has exactly one solution. It also warns that the puzzle is intentionally tricky because words can appear to fit more than one category. A word may have a plausible relationship with several others, but only one arrangement satisfies all four groups at the same time.
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| Color | Relative difficulty | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Easiest | The most straightforward category |
| Green | Second | A more indirect connection than Yellow |
| Blue | Third | A difficult or less obvious relationship |
| Purple | Trickiest | The category most likely to require a lateral interpretation |
The colors indicate the puzzle’s intended difficulty order; they do not change the number of words, the number of groups or the number of mistakes allowed.
Why an apparently valid group can be wrong
Connections is built around overlap. A word can match the surface meaning of one category while belonging to a different group in the unique complete solution. Before submitting, check whether your four words form a precise category and whether the remaining 12 words can still be divided into three groups of four. This is especially important when a broad relationship, abbreviation or shared word can produce several tempting combinations.
How many mistakes can you make?
The official win-rate definition is completing a puzzle in under four mistakes. In practical terms, a result with zero, one, two or three mistakes meets that threshold. The official statistics display a mistake histogram from zero through four mistakes.
That definition is a statistical threshold. The Help Center’s wording does not establish every detail of the game-over screen or describe what the interface does after a fourth incorrect submission, so it is safest to treat “under four” as the rule used to classify a win rather than infer additional screen behavior.
What counts as a mistake
A mistake is an incorrect group submission: you selected four words, submitted them, and they did not match one of the puzzle’s four solution groups. A successful group does not consume a mistake. Because the game is designed with overlapping possibilities, an incorrect submission can be understandable even when it shares a real relationship; it is still counted as a mistake for the puzzle’s statistics.
How to protect your mistake count
- Look for an exact, distinctive relationship instead of a loose association.
- When four words seem to fit, inspect the other 12 before committing. A group that leaves an impossible remainder is probably a decoy.
- Be cautious with words that can function as different parts of speech, proper names, abbreviations or members of more than one familiar set.
- If you are unsure, rearrange the board and test alternative categories mentally before submitting.
What time does NYT Connections reset?
The daily puzzle releases at midnight in the player’s time zone. The relevant deadline for a streak is also your local midnight, not a single worldwide reset time. A puzzle completed after midnight is treated as late for the previous day’s streak.
| Situation | Effect on the current streak |
|---|---|
| You win before local midnight | The consecutive-win streak continues |
| You finish after local midnight | The previous streak is broken |
| You lose or fail to complete the day’s puzzle | You do not record a qualifying consecutive win |
| You complete an archive puzzle | It does not change the current or maximum streak |
The Help Center states that a broken Connections streak cannot be reset. If preserving a streak matters, allow enough time to submit the puzzle before your own midnight rather than relying on the moment shown on someone else’s device or in another time zone.
Do archive puzzles affect your streak?
No. The Connections archive goes back to June 12, 2023 and is available to All Access and Games subscribers. Archive play is separate from the live daily sequence.
Solving an archive puzzle does update several account statistics:
- Completed-puzzle count
- Win rate
- Perfect-puzzle statistics
- The distribution of mistakes
Archive solves do not change your current streak or your maximum streak. This lets subscribers use older puzzles for practice or completion without manufacturing a live-day streak.
Archive and daily play are different records
A daily result is tied to the calendar sequence and its local-midnight deadline. An archive result is an additional completed puzzle that contributes to aggregate statistics. If you are trying to protect a streak, choose the current puzzle and finish it before midnight; an archive session cannot repair a missed day.
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Does Connections have hints?
There are two distinct help routes documented by The New York Times, and they serve different purposes.
| Option | Who can use it | What it provides | Main risk or limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connections Companion | Anyone who can read the community page | Community hints, comments and difficulty scores | Comments may contain spoilers |
| Connections Bot | All Access, Home Delivery and Games subscribers | Personal performance and puzzle analysis | It is documented as an analysis feature, not as an unrestricted answer-reveal tool |
Using Connections Companion without spoiling the answer
Connections Companion is a community forum. Everyone can read its hints, comments and difficulty scores, but the Help Center warns that comments may include spoilers. If you want assistance without seeing the solution, attempt the puzzle first and scroll carefully. Stop reading as soon as a comment starts naming categories, listing words or describing the final grouping.
What Connections Bot analyzes
For eligible subscribers, Connections Bot reports comparative puzzle difficulty, a skill score and a solution-uniqueness rating. It can also show category difficulty and order, describe common mistakes with AI-generated explanations, and provide guess-by-guess analysis. Those reports are intended to explain how you played and where an incorrect grouping occurred; the documented feature should not be treated as a guaranteed hint generator for every unsolved board.
What does “one away” mean?
“One away” appears in a 2025 Association for Computational Linguistics study as a hint condition in that study’s experimental setup. That terminology describes the researchers’ test condition. It does not establish that the live NYT game always offers a “one away” hint or that the current interface uses that exact label. Use only hint types that the game or its current official help actually displays.
Where can you play Connections, and do you need an account?
The official Help Center describes Connections as free to play across the listed platforms and says registration or sign-in is not required to start. The listed venues are the NYT Games app, the NYT Connections webpage, nytimes.com/theathletic and the NYT News app.
Signing in is recommended when you want progress and statistics to remain available across devices. An account is particularly relevant for streak history, archive statistics and subscriber features, but the basic ability to open and play the daily puzzle does not require registration according to the official documentation.
The Help Center does not publish a country-by-country availability matrix. Availability can therefore differ by platform, account status or location, and the official article should be treated as the authority for your specific access situation.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What published accuracy statistics actually show
A 2025 Association for Computational Linguistics paper evaluated 100 Connections puzzles using a defined participant and experimental setup. It reported 56% accuracy without hints and 60.67% accuracy with full hints.
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Those numbers describe that controlled evaluation, not the performance of all NYT players. They are not a population-wide solve rate, a promise that hints will improve every individual result, or a prediction of your personal streak. The study’s dataset covered daily puzzles from June 12, 2023 through June 3, 2024, so its results also reflect that puzzle sample and that period.
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Common situations and the correct response
“I solved after midnight. Why did my streak disappear?”
The streak deadline is local midnight. Finishing after that point breaks the previous consecutive-win run, and the Help Center says broken Connections streaks cannot be reset. The late solve can still be recorded as a completed puzzle and may affect aggregate statistics, but it cannot restore the streak.
“I played an old puzzle. Why is my streak unchanged?”
Archive puzzles are excluded from current and maximum streak calculations. They update completed puzzles, win rate, perfect-puzzle totals and mistake distribution instead.
“A community comment gave away the category.”
That is a normal spoiler risk on Connections Companion because comments are publicly readable. For spoiler control, solve before opening the forum, avoid comment threads, and leave the page when a hint becomes more explicit than you want.
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Connections Bot is documented as a subscriber analysis feature. Its reports focus on difficulty, skill, uniqueness, category order, common mistakes and individual guesses. That is different from an unrestricted answer button.
“I saw a ‘one away’ reference online. Is it an official game rule?”
Not necessarily. The phrase is documented in the ACL paper’s experimental hint condition, not as a complete inventory of current live-game hints. Check the current interface rather than assuming the research terminology is a product feature.
A practical, spoiler-aware way to play
- Open the current daily puzzle on an official platform and note your local time.
- Scan all 16 words before making a selection so you can spot obvious groups and possible overlaps.
- Test a candidate group against the remaining 12 words. Submit only when the category is specific and the remainder still appears solvable.
- Track your mistakes, remembering that the official win threshold is fewer than four.
- After solving, use Connections Companion only if you accept community spoiler risk. If you are an eligible subscriber, use Connections Bot to study your performance rather than expecting it to function as a universal answer key.
- If you want to maintain a streak, finish before your local midnight. Use archive puzzles separately for practice because they do not alter streak records.
Do you need to buy anything to play?
The official documentation describes a free web and app game, account-linked statistics, a community forum and subscriber features. It does not identify a physical product, accessory or solving tool as necessary for play. A subscription matters only for the documented restricted features such as the archive and Connections Bot; the basic daily puzzle is described as free to play.
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