Letter Boxed

About Letter Boxed

Letter Boxed is a word puzzle by Sam Ezersky, the editor of Spelling Bee, published by The New York Times. It had a soft launch in 2018 and was released in February 2019, the third game in the Times' puzzle section after the Crossword and Spelling Bee.

Each day's puzzle is a square with three letters on each side. You build words of three letters or more by tapping letters, and two letters in a row may never come from the same side, so double letters such as the two Ts in letter are impossible. Each new word has to start with the last letter of the previous one. The puzzle is solved when every letter has been used at least once, and the game sets a target number of words, usually between four and six. Proper nouns and offensive words are not accepted.

A new square appears at 3 a.m. Eastern Time. The next day, a Yesterday option shows a two-word solution to the previous puzzle, which is the answer regular players try to find on their own. There is no timer and no limit on attempts, so you can delete words and try other routes as long as you like.

Since 27 August 2025 Letter Boxed has needed a paid New York Times Games or All Access subscription, on the website and in the NYT Games app. It suits players who like Spelling Bee and want a puzzle where the order of words matters as much as finding them.

How to play Letter Boxed

1. Open Letter Boxed on nytimes.com or in the NYT Games app and sign in with a subscription.
2. Tap a letter on any side to start a word, then tap letters on other sides to spell it; you cannot take two letters in a row from the same side.
3. Press Enter to submit a word of three or more letters.
4. Start the next word: it begins automatically with the last letter of the word you just played.
5. Keep chaining words until every one of the twelve letters has been used at least once.
6. Try to finish within the target number of words, then come back tomorrow to compare with the two-word solution.

Screenshots

Tips

• Find the awkward letters first, such as J, Q, X or Z, and think of a word that uses them early.
• Long words that end in a common starting letter like S, T or E keep the chain open.
• For a two-word solution, look for a long word that uses most letters and ends on a letter that starts a word using the rest.
• Plurals and verb endings help: a word ending in S or ED can link to a second word quickly.
• Delete and rebuild freely; there is no penalty for retrying.
• Check the Yesterday answer each morning to learn the kind of words the puzzle is built around.

Questions