Connections Solver

NYT Connections presents 16 words that must be sorted into four groups of four, with each group sharing a hidden connection or theme. The groups are color-coded by difficulty — yellow is easiest, green is moderate, blue is harder, and purple is the most challenging and often the most surprising. You get four mistakes before the game ends, so submitting a group you're uncertain about can be costly. To use this solver, type all 16 words from your puzzle into the grid — one word per box — then hit Find Groups and Claude AI will identify the four most likely thematic groupings. Use Unlock It mode to reveal one group at a time if you want to stay in the game rather than seeing all four answers at once.

Disclaimer: PuzzleUnlock is an independent puzzle help site and is not affiliated with The New York Times, Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, Strands, Scrabble, Hasbro, Boggle, or any other puzzle publisher. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.

About Connections

NYT Connections was created by Wyna Liu, an associate puzzle editor at the New York Times, and officially launched in June 2023. It immediately became one of the most discussed and shared daily puzzles on social media, joining Wordle as a cultural touchstone of the daily puzzle ecosystem. Within its first year, Connections accumulated billions of plays and became a central part of the NYT Games suite, which collectively draws tens of millions of daily players and contributes significantly to the Times' digital subscription revenue.

The puzzle presents 16 words arranged in a 4×4 grid. Players must identify four groups of four words, each sharing a hidden connection or category. The groups are color-coded by difficulty — yellow is typically the most straightforward, green is moderate, blue is difficult, and purple is the most challenging and often the most surprising. Players have four attempts before the puzzle ends. The genius of Connections lies in its deliberate misdirection: words are specifically chosen to suggest multiple false groupings.

What makes Connections culturally significant and endlessly replayable is its emphasis on lateral thinking over pure vocabulary knowledge. Categories can involve wordplay (things that can follow a specific word), pop culture references (movies by the same director), semantic themes (types of something), or abstract connections (words that can precede "ball"). A word like PITCH could belong to a music group (musical pitch), a sports group (baseball pitch), a sales group (sales pitch), or a construction group (roof pitch) — and only one grouping is correct, by design.

The puzzle has spawned a rich community of daily discussion. Reddit's r/NYTConnections community has hundreds of thousands of members who share daily results, theories, and the particular frustration of the purple category. The puzzle's social element — sharing color-coded result grids that reveal how many attempts each group required — mirrors Wordle's social dynamic but adds the dimension of group difficulty. Connections has been credited with introducing entirely new demographics to daily puzzle solving, particularly younger players drawn by its pop culture and wordplay elements.

The yellow group is typically the most apparent, but NYT constructors know this and use it as a misdirection opportunity. Words that seem obviously connected in yellow may actually belong to a harder group. Use your first attempt to verify a group you're very confident about, not just the one that seems easiest on the surface.

The single most important Connections skill is recognizing deliberate misdirection. If five words seem to share a connection, one of them belongs to a different group. NYT constructors deliberately include words that could fit multiple categories. When you think you have a group, look for the one word that might belong elsewhere.

Many Connections categories involve compound words, phrases, or word relationships rather than semantic similarity. Common category types include: things that can follow a specific word (THUNDER ___), things that can precede a specific word (___ HOUSE), words associated with a specific concept, names sharing a hidden connection, and double meaning words grouped by one specific meaning.

Purple is intentionally the most surprising or abstract category. Don't spend early attempts on purple. Use the process of elimination — once you've correctly identified yellow, green, and blue, the remaining four words are purple by default, making it easier to understand their unexpected connection in retrospect.

PuzzleUnlock uses Claude AI to analyze all 16 words simultaneously — understanding semantic themes, wordplay, compound word relationships, and cultural references. The AI returns four proposed groups with confidence ratings, explaining the reasoning behind each grouping. Enter all 16 words for the most accurate analysis.

Identify the most obvious group first — then be suspicious of it

Watch aggressively for red herrings

Think about word forms and modifiers

Save the purple group for last

Use the AI solver for full group analysis

Q: Is there always exactly one correct solution?

Yes — each puzzle has one intended solution designed by NYT constructors. However, you can attempt the four groups in any order. The game ends after four incorrect group submissions, regardless of how many groups you've correctly identified.

Q: How does the AI solver work?

PuzzleUnlock uses Claude AI which analyzes all 16 words for semantic relationships, wordplay patterns, compound word possibilities, and cultural connections. The AI understands the way NYT designs Connections puzzles — specifically that categories often involve word relationships rather than simple semantic grouping.

Q: Why does the solver sometimes suggest a different answer than the NYT?

NYT Connections is specifically designed to misdirect — multiple valid-seeming groupings are intentional. The AI analyzes the words as presented and proposes the most likely groupings, but the puzzle's deliberate ambiguity means the AI's suggestion may differ from the intended solution.

Q: Can I use the photo scanner with Connections?

Yes — take a screenshot of your Connections puzzle and use PuzzleUnlock's photo scanner to read all 16 words automatically. This eliminates typo errors in word entry, especially useful for puzzles with uncommon words or proper nouns.

Q: What makes the purple category different?

Purple categories are designed to be the most surprising — often involving an abstract concept, an unexpected word relationship, or a connection that only becomes clear after seeing all four words together. They frequently involve wordplay, proper nouns, or cultural references that require a mental leap.

Q: How many Connections puzzles have been published?

Connections launched in June 2023 and publishes one new puzzle every day. As of mid-2025, over 700 puzzles have been published, all available in the NYT Games archive for subscribers.