You can play the Mini at nytimes.com/games, in the The New York Times Games app (iOS and Android), and in the Play tab of the New York Times News app.

Games and All Access Subscribers can also solve past Mini Crossword puzzles in the archive.

Each daily mini is available for players the evening before the puzzle’s publish date. 

• Weekday and Saturday puzzles are available at 10 p.m. EST the previous day.
• Sunday puzzles are available at 6 p.m. EST on Saturday.
• To receive alerts on your device when the newest daily puzzle is available, you can enable push notifications in the Games app Settings. 
• If you previously rejected push notifications but want to re-enable them for the mini, navigate to the Games app in your device settings and turn on Notifications. 

The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases that cross each other, by solving clues in the Across and Down columns which lead to the answers.

How do I know if I’ve successfully solved the puzzle? 

• When you solve the puzzle correctly, music will play and a congratulatory message will appear on the screen. 
• If the board is completely filled in and you don’t receive a message, this means there is at least one incorrectly filled square. 

Completion of the Mini is represented with a blue star. The Mini Crossword does not have a streak feature, but you can find out more about your time statistics in the Leaderboard section below.

Keyboard Shortcuts 

You can use the following keyboard shortcuts to play the Mini on a computer:  

• Arrow keys -  change direction within the same square, move in the direction of the arrow, jump back to the first blank in the word, or jump to the next clue. 
• Spacebar - clear the current square and advance, toggle between Across and Down. 
• Backspace (Delete on Macs) - remove words or a letter from a word. 
• Tab key - Jump to the next clue
• Shift + Tab keys - Jump to the previous clue
• Escape - Enter Rebus mode

Pen and Pencil Modes

When playing the Mini, you can alternate between pen and pencil modes. For both app and online, select the pencil icon to switch from one mode to the other.  

• Letters entered in the default pen mode are black, while letters entered in pencil mode are gray.
• Select the pencil icon (so it’s highlighted) to solve in pencil mode.
• Deselect the pencil icon to return to the default pen mode.

Letter Colors In the Mini 

The letter colors that appear in the Mini indicate the following:

• Black - Letters entered in the default pen mode.
• Gray - Letters entered in pencil mode.
• Blue - Letters that have been confirmed with Check.

How the Mini Timer Works 

You can time how long it takes to solve a puzzle using the timer, which displays above the puzzle. 

• Pause the time by selecting the pause button or leaving the puzzle. 
• Select the Continue button to resume puzzle play and start the timer again. 
• The timer will restart if the entire puzzle is cleared.
• To hide the timer, navigate to the Puzzle settings (gear icon) at the top of the puzzle and turn off the Show Timer option.

The New York Times offers many resources to help you solve puzzles and get better at solving puzzles.

In Game Help:

If you are stuck on a word, select the lifesaver icon at the top of the puzzle to check or reveal a square, an answer, or the entire puzzle:

• Clear - Clear the entire puzzle to start again.
• Reveal - Reveal the correct letters for a square, an answer, or the entire puzzle.
• Check - Checks a square, word, or the entire puzzle. You can also turn on Autocheck, which will automatically check each square as you input a letter or word into the puzzle.

Leaderboards is a feature available for the Mini on the New York Times Games site for Desktop and the Mobile app. You and your friends who play the Mini can add each other to your leaderboards to keep track of how long it takes for everyone to complete each day’s puzzle. 

• When a new puzzle arrives each day, the leaderboard automatically resets to reflect the new puzzle. 
• You can only view the leaderboard for the current live Mini puzzle. 
• Solve time is calculated the first time that you solve a puzzle. 

Leaderboards are personal, so the only people you will see on your leaderboard are those you invite to join and confirm to add. You can have up to 100 people on your leaderboard, in addition to yourself. If you want to add an extra person to a full leaderboard, you will need to remove someone before adding a new person.

Note: Removing someone from your leaderboard will also remove you from their leaderboard.

There are currently no global leaderboards (where everyone who plays the Mini shows up on one leaderboard). In global leaderboards, it is impossible to monitor or constantly try to stop cheating.