Inboxes (The Economist)

About Inboxes (The Economist)

Inboxes is a daily puzzle from The Economist, launched on 15 July 2026 with the line that it would have readers thinking inside the box. The name is a pun on email inboxes, and the game is pitched as a short break from them.

The puzzle itself is Shikaku, a Japanese pencil puzzle. The grid is 8 squares by 12 and scattered with numbers. Your job is to draw rectangles over the whole grid so that every square belongs to exactly one rectangle, every rectangle holds exactly one number, and that number equals the count of squares inside it. A 6 can be a 2 by 3 block, a 3 by 2 block or a straight line of six, and the rest of the grid decides which.

There is no guessing: each grid has one solution you can reach by logic. The game times you, so the challenge on a second look is speed rather than whether you can finish.

It suits players who like the newspaper logic grids, such as LinkedIn's Queens or a quick sudoku, and want a puzzle that takes a few minutes with a coffee.

How to play Inboxes (The Economist)

1. Look at the numbers on the grid: each one is the area of the rectangle that will contain it.
2. Start with numbers that can only fit one way, such as a large number near an edge or a 1.
3. Drag across squares to draw a rectangle around a number with exactly that many squares.
4. Keep going until every square is covered and every rectangle holds one number.
5. The timer stops when the grid is complete; come back the next day for a new grid.

Tips

• Prime numbers like 5 and 7 can only be straight lines, which narrows them down fast.
• Squares that only one number can reach must belong to that number's rectangle.
• Fill corners first: they have the fewest ways to be covered.

Questions