Solving the Daily faster

Your Daily rank is your time, nothing else. These are the things that actually bring it down, starting with the one most players miss.

Read the list before you touch the grid

The Daily's clock starts on your first touch of the grid, not when the puzzle appears. That means the time you spend reading the word list, and looking at the grid, is free. Use it.

• Read all nine words and notice which ones have unusual letters or double letters.
• Look at the grid and see if any word jumps out. If one does, you can swipe it the moment the clock starts.
• Pick your first two or three targets.

A calm ten seconds of reading before the first touch is often worth more than any speed trick after it.

Go in the easiest order, not list order

The list order means nothing. Start with the long words and the ones with rare letters, then the rest. Every word you find removes letters from the grid, so the hard ones get easier the longer you leave them. The long and short words guide explains why long words come first.

Swipe loosely

The highlight snaps to the nearest straight line, so you don't need a precise drag. Put your finger on the first letter, move roughly toward the last, and lift. Slow, careful swipes cost more time than the occasional miss. A wrong swipe costs nothing but a tiny shake. It only matters as a tiebreaker between two identical times.

Move on from a stubborn word

If a word hasn't turned up in ten or fifteen seconds, switch to another. Coming back with fresh eyes, after a couple of other finds have cleared the grid, is faster than staring. When one word is left, change method rather than repeating the same scan: sweep rows, then columns, then diagonals. See scanning techniques.

Expect a backwards diagonal

The Daily is a Medium puzzle: 10×10, nine words, all eight directions, and at least five directions used. Odds are good that at least one word runs backwards and at least one runs diagonally. When a word won't appear, check those first. More in diagonal and backwards words.

When a hint is worth it

A hint doesn't add seconds to your time. What it costs is coins, the no-hint score bonus, and a place in the tiebreak if someone finishes in exactly the same time. So if you're completely stuck on the last word, a Direction hint for 10 coins may well get you a better rank than another minute of searching. If you care about a clean share card, keep looking. Either is a fine choice. How hints work.

Set yourself up

• Pick your moment. The clock pauses if you leave the app or take a call, but it's easiest to play when you won't be interrupted.
• Use a bigger screen if you have one. The Daily is the same on iPhone and iPad, and on an iPad the letters are bigger and the word list sits beside the grid when you hold it sideways.
• Mind the main button side. In Settings, put the main button on the side of the hand you hold your phone with.

Don't rush the bonus round

Once the last listed word is found, the clock has stopped. The bonus round that follows is untimed as far as your rank goes, so take the full 60 seconds to hunt for the bonus word and extra words. They add to your score and your league points, never to your time.

Practice

Two good ways to get faster without affecting your rank: Blitz, which trains quick spotting in 60-second runs, and the past Dailies on the Today tab, which let you replay recent puzzles for fun. And there's always tomorrow's Daily.

Updated September 30, 2026.