Mini Crossword (minicrossword.com)

About Mini Crossword (minicrossword.com)

The Mini Crossword is a small daily crossword you can finish on a coffee break. Each puzzle has a number and a title (number 103 on 2 October 2026 was Thunderstruck), a compact grid and a handful of across and down clues. Most days the grid is 5x5; on Saturdays and Sundays it can grow to 7x7, and like a newspaper crossword it starts gentle on Monday and gets tougher toward the weekend.

The daily puzzles are edited by Jeff Chen, a constructor with more than 150 puzzles in The New York Times and many more in the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal, who for a decade wrote the daily NYT puzzle analysis at XWord Info. Alongside the Daily Easy there is a Daily Hard mini, also under his editing.

The site is free with no account and no paywall, and it tracks your streak. Check and Reveal work on a square, a word or the whole grid. Once you have solved the dailies, the archive holds earlier puzzles and Unlimited offers auto-generated grids for practice. The site also links to a larger Midi crossword and to the word game Wordplete.

It suits anyone who likes the NYT Mini format but wants a free alternative with carefully edited clues.

How to play Mini Crossword (minicrossword.com)

1. Open minicrossword.com and press Start Game on the Daily Easy.
2. Click a square to select it; click again to switch between Across and Down.
3. Type letters; the cursor moves on to the next square.
4. Use crossings to fill the grid, and Check or Reveal a square, word or the whole grid if stuck.
5. Finish the grid to keep your streak, then try the Daily Hard.

Screenshots

Tips

• Start with the shortest clues and fill-in-the-blank answers.
• Use the title: it often hints at a theme in the longer answers.
• Expect tougher clues later in the week and bigger grids at weekends.
• Leave Reveal for last if you care about a clean solve.

Questions