How to Use the Wordle Archive (Past Puzzles)

Wordle has been daily-only since launch, which means once you’ve played today’s puzzle, yesterday’s puzzle officially disappears. If you want to play old Wordle puzzles — to practice openers, catch up after missing days, or settle a “what was the answer that day” debate — the official NYT subscriber archive is now the main route. The once-popular free fan site, Wordle Archive, was taken down at the Times’ request in March 2022. This guide covers how to use Wordle archive options that still exist, plus free workarounds.

Option 1: The official NYT Wordle Archive

The New York Times announced an official Wordle Archive for NYT Games subscribers in May 2024. It’s the cleanest way to play past Wordle puzzles because it pulls from the canonical NYT word list and tracks your archive progress separately from your daily streak.

How to access the official archive

1. Visit nytimes.com/games/wordle in your browser.
2. Sign in to your NYT account (you’ll need an active NYT Games subscription or a full NYT All Access subscription).
3. Open the menu icon (three lines in the top corner of the Wordle interface).
4. Select “Archive” — this opens a calendar view of past Wordle puzzles. (Menu labels can move between app updates.)
5. Click any date to play that day’s puzzle.

The archive is a subscription perk and is not free. Check the NYT site for current subscription pricing, which often includes introductory discounts. If you don’t already subscribe, the archive alone is unlikely to be worth the cost — but if you already pay for the Mini Crossword, Spelling Bee, or Connections archive, Wordle archive comes bundled.

What the official archive includes

The calendar runs back to June 2021, so it covers the Josh Wardle era as well as the years since the NYT bought the game in January 2022. The Times edited the answer list after the acquisition, so the archive reflects the NYT word list rather than every original Wardle-era answer. Archive play is tracked separately from your main daily streak.

Option 2: Free practice without a subscription

For a while, a fan-made site called Wordle Archive let anyone replay old puzzles for free. In March 2022, shortly after buying Wordle, the New York Times asked for it to be removed, and the site went offline. Other unofficial copies have come and gone since, so don’t count on any one of them lasting.

Practicing with a Wordle-style game

1. If your goal is practice rather than replaying a specific date, a Wordle-style game works just as well.
2. Our free Wordle-style word game runs in the browser with no account.
3. Play it the same way as Wordle — six guesses, color-coded feedback.
4. It won’t give you the official answer for a given date, but it builds the same deduction habits.

Limitations of unofficial options

Fan copies of the official puzzles are unofficial by definition, and the NYT has shown it will act on sites that copy Wordle closely. Stats in browser games are usually stored locally, so clearing site data or using a private window resets them, and there’s no cross-device sync.

Option 3: Wayback Machine for very old puzzles

If you’re curious about the original Josh Wardle version of Wordle, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has snapshots of the original powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle URL from late 2021 into early 2022. These show the original site as it appeared before the move to the NYT.

Use the Wayback Machine to find snapshots: search for powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle and pick a snapshot date. Results vary: the original game picked its puzzle from your device’s date, so a snapshot won’t reliably show the puzzle from the day it was captured, and some snapshots won’t run properly at all.

For the historically curious, this is a way to see the pre-NYT game. For actual archive play, the NYT archive is simpler.

How to find a specific Wordle puzzle

Wordle puzzles are numbered sequentially from Wordle #0 (June 19, 2021). You can convert any date to a puzzle number with simple arithmetic: count the days since June 19, 2021. Wordle #100 was September 27, 2021. Wordle #500 was November 1, 2022. Wordle #1000 was March 15, 2024.

On the NYT archive, the calendar view lets you click directly on the date. If you remember the date you played a memorable puzzle, the archive can take you back to it.

What about the daily streak when you play archive puzzles?

The official NYT archive tracks your archive progress without affecting your main daily streak. Playing yesterday’s archive puzzle does not count toward today’s main streak; you still need to play today’s actual Wordle to extend your daily streak.

For Wordle regulars who care about their main streak, the archive is a separate game — fun for catching up, settling debates, or practicing openers, but not a substitute for the daily ritual.

Using the archive to practice opener words

One of the most useful applications of the archive is testing opening words. Information theory analyses (most notably Grant Sanderson’s 3Blue1Brown videos) have pointed to words like SALET, CRANE, TARES, and RAISE as among the most informative openers. If you want to validate this with data, you can play the same opener through 50-100 archived puzzles and track your average solve rate.

This is the kind of dedicated practice the daily-puzzle-only Wordle format doesn’t allow. The archive removes the one-puzzle-per-day constraint and turns Wordle into a corpus you can study. For more on the best opening words, our Wordle opening words guide goes deeper. For Wordle-style games beyond the original, our Wordle variants list covers the better spin-offs.

The legal and ethical question

The NYT owns Wordle. The official archive is the licensed way to play past puzzles. Fan sites that copy the official puzzles do so without permission, and the Times has acted against them — the takedown of the original Wordle Archive in 2022 is the best-known example.

If you support the NYT Games product and want the canonical experience, the official archive is the right choice. If you want free practice without a subscription, a Wordle-style game gives you unlimited rounds without depending on copied puzzles.

What if a puzzle just won’t load?

Loading problems mostly hit Wayback Machine snapshots, though the NYT archive can occasionally misbehave too. If a puzzle won’t load:

• Try a different browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge).
• Clear your browser cache for the specific archive site.
• Disable browser extensions, especially ad blockers, which sometimes block archive scripts.
• For Wayback Machine, try a different snapshot date for the same period — multiple snapshots usually exist.
• If the official NYT archive fails, sign out and back in to your NYT account.

For the canonical reference on the Wordle game’s history and the NYT acquisition, the Wikipedia entry on Wordle includes details on the various archive options that have appeared over the years.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Wordle archive free?

No. The official NYT Wordle Archive requires an NYT Games or All Access subscription. The best-known free fan archive was taken down in 2022. For free practice, Wordle-style games give you unlimited rounds, just not the official answers by date.

How far back does the Wordle archive go?

Wordle’s first puzzle is dated June 19, 2021, and the NYT archive calendar runs back to June 2021 — more than 1,900 puzzles by late 2026. Early dates reflect the NYT’s edited word list rather than every original answer.

Can I play old Wordle puzzles without a subscription?

Not reliably. The free fan-run Wordle Archive was taken down in 2022, and Wayback Machine snapshots of the original powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle page are hit-and-miss. For practice, a free Wordle-style game is the dependable option.

Do archive puzzles count toward my Wordle streak?

No. Your main daily streak is based on whether you solve the current day’s actual puzzle. Archive puzzles are tracked separately (or not at all, depending on the platform). If you miss a day, an archive solve won’t restore your streak.

Why do some archived puzzles have different answers than I remember?

The NYT edited several Wordle answers shortly after the January 2022 acquisition, mostly removing politically charged or insensitive words. If you played the original Wardle version of a puzzle in late 2021 or early 2022, the NYT archive will show the post-edit version. Wayback Machine snapshots preserve the original site, though they won’t always show a given day’s puzzle.

The takeaway

The Wordle archive is one of the better daily-puzzle perks of the NYT Games subscription, and free Wordle-style games cover practice for everyone else. Either way, the archive turns a strictly daily game into a deep, studyable corpus — useful for practice, fun for nostalgia, helpful for settling group-chat debates. After a few archive sessions, the Chrome Dino game sits one tab away as the other zero-friction browser puzzle for when your eyes need a break from five-letter words.

Related: The Rise of Daily Web Puzzles (Wordle Onward) · 12 Games Like Wordle — Best Daily Word Puzzles to Play · How to Play Crossword Puzzles for Beginners