New York Times Crossword Archive
Learn how to access the New York Times Crossword Archive and play archived Crossword puzzles.
Visit The New York Times Crossword Archive to view past puzzles that can be downloaded and played offline. The New York Times Crossword archive goes back over ten years meaning players can keep solving even after the daily crossword is done!
Select an option below to learn more:
Where to Play Archived Puzzles
Games and All Access subscribers have access to the Archive. If you do not have a Games or All Access subscription, you have limited access to the Archive.
Games App
To access the Crossword Archives in the Games App, select the Archives tab from the bottom of the app home screen.
In the Archive you can toggle between The Crossword and The Mini archive using the tabs at the top. Change the date at the top of the calendar screen to navigate through each archive by month and year:
Web Browser
When playing on the web you can access archived puzzles from the Games homepage:
- Select the hamburger menu icon on the top left-hand side of the Games homepage:
- Select Crossword Archives from the drop-down menu:
In the Crossword Archives you can toggle between the Daily and Mini archive using the tabs at the top. Change the date at the top of the calendar screen to navigate through each archive by month and year:
How to Play a Puzzle From the Archive
Games App
- Navigate to the Archive tab at the bottom of the Games app homepage.
- Select either The Crossword or The Mini.
- Select the month and year you would like to see puzzles from.
- Select the puzzle you would like to play. This will download the puzzle. If the puzzle has already been downloaded to your device, no arrow will appear on the puzzle in the calendar view and it will open upon selection.
- Select the puzzle again to begin play.
Note: You may need to restore your network connection to sync puzzle progress with other devices and on the web.
Website
- From the Crossword Archive select either Daily or Mini.
- Choose a month and year to show puzzles from that timeframe.
- Select the puzzle you would like to play.
Removing Downloaded Puzzles From Your Device
You can remove a downloaded puzzle on the Games app from your device in the Archives tab by pressing down on the puzzle icon.
A pop-up window will appear, allowing you to “delete puzzle”. Your progress will not be lost if you remove a downloaded puzzle from your device. To view your progress, redownload the puzzle.
Note: By deleting a puzzle, you are simply removing the downloaded puzzle from your device. You can always re-download the puzzle if you wish.
- On Android devices, downloaded puzzles are automatically removed when you log out of the app.
- On iOS devices, downloaded puzzles are automatically removed from your device if they were solved more than 30 days prior.
Archive Icons Glossary
This section provides meanings for each of the puzzle icons in the Archive:
This puzzle is unavailable right now.
A new puzzle is available.
This puzzle is not available offline.
This puzzle is downloaded, but not solved.
This puzzle is correctly solved.
This puzzle was correctly solved and qualified for a streak.
This puzzle was correctly solved and qualified for a streak, but has not been downloaded to a device.
These puzzles represent a streak (which can be as few as 2 days).
This puzzle was incorrectly completed and therefore not solved.
The amount of blue squares filled in each of the above puzzle images indicates your puzzle progress (from start to finish).