Frequently Asked Questions

No. Mini Crossword is an independent daily puzzle site. It is not affiliated with The New York Times or any other newspaper or publisher. We make and publish our own free 5×5 crossword every day and keep the last 90 days in a free archive.

No. The daily puzzle, the archive, Unlimited mode, the hints, the answers and the printable grids are all free. There's no subscription, no account to create, and no signup wall anywhere on the site.

Most regular solvers finish a 5×5 in one to three minutes. Your first few may take longer while you get used to the clue style, and that's normal. The 6×6 and 7×7 usually take three to ten minutes. The timer starts when you press Play, and your fastest daily and Unlimited times are kept as personal bests.

Every day at midnight Eastern Time. At that moment today's puzzle becomes yesterday's archive entry and a fresh 5×5 takes its place, along with new 6×6 and 7×7 grids and a new hints page.

Yes. The archive at /archive covers the last 90 days. Every date in it has its own puzzle page, hints page and answers page, so you can catch up on a missed week or replay an old favorite. Unlimited mode reaches further back, into our whole library.

Fill the grid so every Across answer (left to right) and every Down answer (top to bottom) matches its clue. Click or tap a square, type a letter, and the cursor moves on through the word. Letters where an Across and a Down answer cross are shared, so each one you place helps with two clues. The full guide at /how-to-play walks through a real puzzle step by step.

Yes. Along with the 5×5 daily there is a new 6×6 and a new 7×7 every day, linked from /puzzles. They take longer, usually three to ten minutes, because every extra row and column adds more crossings to work through.

Unlimited at /unlimited lets you keep playing after the daily. It pulls puzzles from our whole library of past grids in all three sizes, up to and including today's. Pick 5×5, 6×6 or 7×7, and when you finish, the next puzzle starts right away without a page reload.

Check looks at every square you have filled. Wrong letters get a red slash and correct letters turn blue, and empty squares are left alone. Reveal fills in the correct letters for the word your cursor is on. The Clear menu next to them erases the current square, the current word or the whole puzzle.

Autocheck is a setting behind the gear icon. With it on, each letter is checked the moment you type it, so a mistake is marked right away. It is off by default. The same panel lets you skip filled squares, jump back to the first blank in a word, jump to the next clue when a word is done, and show or hide the on-screen keyboard.

The pencil turns on pencil mode. Letters you type while it is on appear in gray, which is a handy way to mark a guess you are not sure about. Turn pencil mode off and type over the square to make the letter permanent. Pencilled letters still count, so a correct one finishes the puzzle like any other letter.

Every daily 5×5 has a hints page with three hints per clue, each stronger than the last. Open one clue at a time and stop as soon as it clicks. If you still need help, the answers page reveals one answer at a time, so you can check a single clue without spoiling the rest of the grid.

When every square is filled and at least one letter is wrong, a "Not quite!" message tells you how many squares are incorrect and marks them with a red slash. Close it and fix those squares, or reset the puzzle to start over. The puzzle counts as solved the moment every letter is right.

On the homepage the clock starts when you press Play. On other puzzle pages it starts when the page loads. It pauses while the tab is in the background and stops when the last correct letter goes in. Your fastest daily and fastest Unlimited times are kept as personal bests.

Yes. Letters you type are saved in your browser, so you can close the tab and pick up where you left off. Your daily streak, which counts the consecutive days you solved that day's puzzle, and your best times are saved the same way. Everything stays on your device; there's no account or cloud sync.

Type letters to fill squares. Backspace erases, and on an empty square it steps back and erases the previous one. The arrow keys move around the grid, Tab and Shift+Tab jump to the next or previous clue, and Enter or the space bar switches between Across and Down. Clicking the square you are already on also switches direction.

Yes. The grid resizes to your screen and an on-screen keyboard sits under it, with the current clue in a bar above the keys. Tap the clue bar to switch direction and use the arrows beside it to move between clues. There's no app to download.