Softonic

Letter Boxed Solver

Step 1 / 3

Enter the three letters on each side of the NYT Letter-Boxed puzzle (no repeats).

Next

The New York Times Letter Boxed puzzle gives you twelve letters arranged three per side of a square. Every word must connect adjacent letters from different sides, never the same side twice in a row, and the last letter of each word becomes the first letter of the next. Solve it in as few words as possible while covering every letter. This solver generates valid words, two-word chains and longer solutions for any layout you paste in.

How to solve a Letter Boxed

  1. 1

    Read the four sides

    Each side has 3 letters. Enter top, right, bottom, left: exactly as shown in the puzzle.

  2. 2

    Run the solver

    Dictionary filtering finds every word playable under the side-alternation rule.

  3. 3

    Pick short chains

    The "two-word solutions" list is the goal of a perfect solve.

  4. 4

    Submit in the NYT app

    Type the words manually: the NYT app doesn't accept clipboard paste.

The rules that catch beginners

Letter Boxed is deceptively strict. Three rules eliminate most candidate words before letter coverage even matters.

The three constraints

  1. Adjacent letters must come from different sides. If T, R, Y are the top side, you cannot play “TRY”, two adjacent letters come from top.
  2. Chain continuity. The last letter of word 1 must be the first letter of word 2. A chain of “ORANGE → ENABLE → EBONY” is legal; “ORANGE → BANANA” is not.
  3. Every letter must appear at least once across the chain. Reusing letters is fine; missing one fails the puzzle.

Typical puzzle layout

        T  R  Y
      . . . . .
    P .         . N
    I .         . O
    A .         . E
      . . . . .
        L  S  D

Side order doesn’t matter for adjacency, only the side membership does. Top = {T, R, Y}, Right = {N, O, E}, Bottom = {L, S, D}, Left = {P, I, A}.

Solving strategy

  • Rare-letter anchor. Whichever letter has the fewest dictionary hits, usually J, Q, X, Z, W, V, pick a word containing it first.
  • End in a common starter. If your first word ends in E, R, T or S, you have thousands of follow-on words.
  • Avoid dead ends. Words ending in J, Q, V, X, Z tend to orphan the chain.
  • Two-word perfection. The NYT considers two-word solves the gold standard. Three-word solves are still good; four-word is the default target.

Why a word list app needs both sides and the dictionary

The solver checks three things per candidate:

  • Every consecutive letter pair uses different sides.
  • Every letter of the word is one of the 12 available.
  • The word is in the NYT-accepted dictionary (their Scrabble-adjacent list, plus a few exclusions).

Proper nouns, hyphenated words, contractions and most slang are excluded. “KAYAK” is accepted, “AIKIDO” is not.

A note on rare letters

Letter Boxed rarely places Q, X, Z on the 12-letter square; when it does, Q and X always share a side with U and, usually, with a vowel respectively. Plan the chain so the rare letter appears early, you have more options landing on a common letter than starting from one.

Frequently Asked Questions

It uses a Scrabble-valid English dictionary, which matches the NYT list for over 99% of words. Occasional disagreements exist, the NYT sometimes rejects very obscure Scrabble entries and accepts some modern compounds Scrabble has not added.

Yes, use the optional dictionary field. Paste comma-separated or line-separated words and the solver will consider them alongside the built-in list, useful when you’re certain the NYT allows a word the default dictionary rejects.

Two words, chained by the last-letter-to-first-letter rule, which together use all 12 letters at least once. These are the prized solutions in Letter Boxed, NYT congratulates you if you find one.

No. The letters you enter are processed locally; nothing leaves the browser.

Related Tools

Mouse Tester

Test your mouse buttons, wheel scrolling, pointer movement and double-click timing in the browser. See event logs and movement samples without uploads.

Spacebar Counter

Count distinct spacebar presses or run a timed test with a target, timer, progress and presses-per-second estimate.

Fancy Serial Number Checker

Check US-style currency serial numbers for fancy patterns like radars, ladders, repeaters, low numbers and star notes.

Minecraft Circle Generator

Create hollow or filled Minecraft circle and ellipse blueprints. Set the block dimensions, count materials, inspect the grid and download an SVG.

Guitar Tuner

Tune a guitar in your browser with microphone pitch detection, cents offset, standard and alternate tunings, and no audio upload.

Competition Bracket Maker

Build a seeded or shuffled single-elimination bracket for 2–32 teams or players, assign automatic byes, advance winners, copy and print it.

Tool available in other languages