Wordle is still free, but it’s been purchased by the New York Times. Learn how to keep the current version on your computer or phone.
Like almost everyone else in the world, I was thrilled to discover Wordle this year. The game is simple: You get six tries to guess a five-letter word, assisted by green and yellow tiles that show you how many letters you have right. There’s a new puzzle every day, and you can share the results on social media (or wear your Wordle score around your neck.)
It’s fun and incredibly addicting. I play Wordle every day, sometimes solving the daily puzzle as soon as the new word drops at midnight. So I was a bit concerned to hear that the New York Times recently bought Wordle, for fear the subscription-based news site might hide the game behind a paywall.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Wordle creator Josh Wardle said, “When the game moves to the NYT site, it will be free to play for everyone, and I am working with them to make sure your wins and streaks are preserved.”
However, if you’re still anxious about losing your daily Wordle fix, there’s a way to continue playing for free — forever. (Well, maybe closer to five more years of daily words.)
Twitter user Aaron Rieke recently posted a thread explaining how Wordle runs entirely in your web browser. Technically you don’t need the internet to play Wordle, because all of the game’s future daily words are included right in the webpage. If you download all the parts of the Wordle site, you could in theory play Wordle every day for years without an internet connection; the game only needs your device’s current date to deliver a new word puzzle.
Here’s how to download Wordle on your computer or smartphone so that it’s free to play no matter what happens.
How to download Wordle on your computer
No matter whether you use Mac or Windows, or whichever web browser you use (Chrome or Safari, for example), you can easily download Wordle to your computer.
1. First, go to the official Wordle website in the web browser of your choice.
2. Next, right-click anywhere on the webpage.
3. Finally, save the page to your computer using one of the options in the menu that appears.
Depending on which web browser you’re using, it might show Save As (Chrome) or Save Page As (Safari). Whatever the option, it should download the Wordle webpage as an HTML file.
