Wordle Solver and Helper
A Wordle solver takes the clues you already have, green letters in their known positions, yellow letters that appear somewhere else, and grey letters that are out, and lists the five-letter words that still fit.
Rebuild the words you played and mark each letter the colour Wordle gave it. Best when you have guessed two or three times and want what is left.
The guesses you have played
Type your guess, then tap a letter to cycle it grey, yellow, green. Grey does not always mean the letter is absent: if you guessed the same letter twice and only one came back coloured, the answer has exactly one of it, and this helper counts them that way.
Loading the dictionary.
Enter the word you played, tap each letter to match the colours Wordle gave you, and the list below narrows as you go.
The only tool here that works from clues rather than from tiles: you give it what the puzzle told you, not the letters you hold.
Type the guess you played, then tap each letter to cycle it grey, yellow or green until the row matches what the puzzle showed you. The helper filters all 12,578 five-letter words in its dictionary down to the ones that satisfy every clue at once, usually a handful by your third guess, and names the guess that splits what is left the hardest.
There is a second way in, for when you know the shape of the answer rather than the guesses that got you there. Switch to “From letters you know” and you get one square per letter: type the letters you are sure of into their own squares, leave the rest blank, and add the letters that are in there somewhere or ruled out entirely. That answers the question a board cannot, such as every five-letter word with an A in the middle and no S, T or R.
It is built to assist rather than to spoil. The list is deliberately a list, not a single answer, so the last decision stays yours. Nothing is uploaded: the dictionary loads into your browser once and every filter after that runs on your device, so today's puzzle never leaves your machine.
One honest caveat. Unscrambly matches against a full English five-letter word list, which is much wider than the curated set the New York Times draws answers from. Treat everything the helper returns as a candidate, not a guarantee.
What are the rules of Wordle?
The helper only makes sense if the clue colours do, so here are the rules it is built around. The grey rule has an exception that trips up most players, and it is the one worth reading twice.
- Answer: one five-letter word, the same for every player that day
- Guesses: 6, each of which must itself be a valid five-letter word
- Green: right letter, right position
- Yellow: the letter is in the answer but not in that position
- Grey: the letter is not in the answer, unless it is repeated elsewhere
- Hard mode: optional setting that forces every revealed clue into later guesses
Rules checked against Wordle (The New York Times).
What do the green, yellow and grey squares mean?
Green means the right letter in the right position. Yellow means the letter is in the answer but somewhere else. Grey means the letter is not in the answer at all, with one important exception: if a letter appears twice in your guess and once in the answer, one copy comes back coloured and the other comes back grey. That grey does not rule the letter out.
This is the single most common misreading of Wordle feedback, and it costs guesses. If you see the same letter both coloured and grey in one row, the answer contains exactly as many copies of it as came back coloured.
A yellow clue also carries a second piece of information: the letter is not in the square you tried it in. Because you mark the clue on the board itself rather than in a list of letters, the helper knows which square that was and drops the candidates that put the letter straight back into it. The same goes for the duplicate rule above: a letter both coloured and grey in one row is counted, not banned.
How do you narrow a Wordle from your clues?
Work in the order the clues constrain: greens first, because a fixed position removes the most candidates, then yellows, then greys. Enter them all in one pass rather than guessing between each, and the helper does the elimination in a single filter.
The worked example below runs a real board through this, showing how many five-letter words survive at each stage.
Which starting word should you use?
There is no single correct opener, but the useful principle is not in dispute: a first guess should test five different, frequent letters. The English tile distribution is a decent proxy for frequency, with E the most common letter by a wide margin, then A, I, O, N, R and T. CRANE, SLATE, AUDIO and ADIEU are all popular for exactly this reason.
Your second guess matters more than your first. If the opener returns one green and nothing else, do not immediately chase an answer. A guess that tests five fresh common letters, even one you expect to be wrong, usually leaves you with a near-certain answer on guess three.
Does it work for 4, 6 or 7 letter Wordle variants?
The grid on this page is fixed at five letters, matching standard Wordle. Spin-offs that use four, six or seven letters need the same logic at a different width, and the Words With These Letters tool covers that: enter the letters you know, then read the block for the length you need.
The complete word lists by length are linked below, so a six-letter variant can be narrowed against all 22,342 six-letter words and a seven-letter one against 33,192.
Worked example: a real Wordle narrowed step by step
- Guess one, CRANE. The A comes back green in position three and the E green in position five. C, R and N come back grey, so they are out entirely.
- Guess two, SOLID. The L comes back yellow: it is in the answer, but not in position three. Position three is already a green A, so that half of the yellow clue costs you nothing here. S, O, I and D go grey.
- That leaves a pattern of blank, blank, A, blank, E, containing an L, with C, R, N, S, O, I and D ruled out. Here is every word in the dictionary that survives:
Two guesses cut 12,578 candidates down to 17. That is the whole job of a Wordle helper: it does the elimination, you pick the answer.
Wordle solver, word unscrambler or anagram solver?
A Wordle solver is a pattern matcher, not an unscrambler. That is the key difference and it explains why the other two tools cannot do this job.
| Tool | Uses | Returns | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anagram solver | every letter you enter, no more and no fewer | only words the exact same length as your input | names, single hidden words, and the LISTEN / SILENT kind of puzzle |
| Word unscrambler | any subset of your letters | full-length words plus every shorter word inside them | the daily jumble, tile games, and any puzzle with several answers |
| Word finder | your letters plus board constraints | words filtered by starting letter, ending letter or length | Scrabble and Words With Friends, where the play has to fit the board |
Use this page when you know where some letters go. Use the unscrambler when you have a pile of letters and no positions, and the anagram solver when the answer has to use every letter you hold.
How many words are there at each Wordle length?
Standard Wordle is five letters, but the variants run from four to seven. These are the real counts this helper filters against, and each links to the full list:
| Word length | Words in the dictionary | Full list |
|---|---|---|
| 4 letters | 5,469 | Every 4-letter word |
| 5 letters | 12,578 | Every 5-letter word |
| 6 letters | 22,342 | Every 6-letter word |
| 7 letters | 33,192 | Every 7-letter word |
Frequently asked questions
Can I search for five-letter words with a letter in a certain position?
Yes. Switch the helper to “From letters you know” and it gives you one square per letter. Put the letter you are sure of in its own square, leave the others blank, and the list narrows to the words that fit. Add the letters that are in the word somewhere, and the ones you have ruled out, to narrow it further. It works for four, six and seven-letter words too.
How does a Wordle solver work?
You rebuild your guesses on the board: green letters locked to a square, yellow letters present but ruled out of that square, and grey letters capped at however many copies came back coloured. The solver then filters every five-letter word in its dictionary and returns the ones that satisfy every clue on every row at once.
Is using a Wordle helper cheating?
That is your call, and it depends on why you use it. Reaching for it on guess two removes the puzzle; reaching for it on guess six to avoid breaking a streak, or afterwards to see what you missed, is how most people use one. The tool deliberately shows a filtered list rather than a single answer.
What does a grey letter mean if the same letter is also yellow?
It means the answer contains fewer copies of that letter than your guess did. If you guess a word with two E tiles and one comes back yellow while the other comes back grey, the answer contains exactly one E. The grey does not rule the letter out.
How many guesses do you get in Wordle?
Six, and every guess must itself be a valid five-letter word. There is one puzzle a day and every player worldwide gets the same answer.
What is the best Wordle starting word?
There is no single right answer, but a good opener tests five different high-frequency letters. E, A, I, O, N, R and T are the most common letters in English, which is why CRANE, SLATE, AUDIO and ADIEU are all popular first guesses.
Does this work for 6 letter or 7 letter Wordle variants?
Not on this grid, which is fixed at five letters. For other lengths use the Words With These Letters tool and read the block matching your length, or start from the full word list for that length linked on this page.
Will the solver always find today's answer?
It will find every dictionary word that fits your clues, and the answer will be among them. It searches a broad English word list rather than the curated New York Times answer set, so the list can include words that would never be a Wordle answer.