We made three new videos. Each one is about a minute long, and each one shows a real puzzle being worked through on the real solver, start to finish.
The old tutorial ran a minute and a half and the old Quordle walkthrough ran over two. We wanted something shorter that gets to the point faster, and we wanted the Quordle and Octordle solvers to each have a video of their own.
You can watch all three right here. They also open from the small video buttons under the board on every solver page.
Wordle Solver: paste a screenshot, get your next guess
This one starts where most of us get stuck: two guesses in, one green, one yellow, and no idea what to play next.
Instead of retyping the board, the video takes a screenshot of the game and pastes it into the Wordle Solver. The board fills itself in, letters and colors, and the list of words that still fit appears underneath with the most likely ones first.
From there it plays the top suggestion, WHOLE, and taps the tiles to match. The list drops from 73 words to 8. The see how link under the results heading shows the whole path: 40,014 five-letter words, then 1,507 after the first guess, 73 after the second and 8 after the third.
The last part of the video shows two things people often miss. The Best Guess sort ranks what is left by how much each word would tell you. And the length menu next to the page title switches the solver to any length from 3 to 18 letters.
Quordle Solver: four boards, nine guesses
Quordle gives you four words and nine guesses, and every guess lands on all four boards at once. The Quordle Solver is built the same way.
In the video, three guesses are typed once: CRANE, SLOTH and MUDDY. Then the colors are tapped in for each board, using the numbered board buttons under the grid to move between them. Your letters stay put when you switch. Only the colors change.
After that the results do the work. One board still has 25 possible words. Another has 7, another has 6, and one is down to a single word. That is the board to play first.
Octordle Solver: eight boards, thirteen guesses
Eight boards is too many to keep in your head, and that is the whole point of the Octordle Solver.
The video opens with four starting words that share no letters: TRACE, BLOND, MUSHY and PIQUE. It marks the colors on board 1 at normal speed, then speeds through boards 2 to 8 so you are not watching the same thing seven times.
Then it flips through all eight boards. Each time you switch, the solver updates on its own, so you can see how many words are left on each board without pressing Solve again. In this game two boards are already down to one word, several have two to six, and one stubborn board still has twelve. The video ends by using Best Guess on that last one.
The advice that comes out of it is simple. Lock in the boards with one word left, then spend your spare guesses on the hard ones.
Where to find the videos on the site
Under the board on every solver page there are two small buttons with a play icon.
- Tutorial opens the new Wordle Solver video.
- See it solve Quordle opens the new Quordle video. On the Octordle page this button reads See it solve Octordle and opens the Octordle video instead.
Both open in a player over the page, so you do not lose your board. If you use the Classic form instead of the Board, those buttons still play the Classic form videos, which have not changed.
Frequently asked questions
Is my screenshot uploaded anywhere?
No. The screenshot is read in your browser and stays on your device. While it works, the button shows a short note saying so.
Do I need to press Solve again when I switch boards in Quordle or Octordle?
No. Switching boards updates the results for the board you just opened.
Why did a tile change color before I tapped it?
On the board, the same letter in the same column always has the same color. If you already marked an E green in the last column, an E you type there in a later guess turns green for you. You can see this happen in the Wordle video when WHOLE is typed in.
Can I use the solver for words that are not five letters long?
Yes. Open the length menu next to the page title and pick any length from 3 to 18 letters.
Tell us what to film next
If something in the solver still confuses you, or there is a feature you would like to see explained, leave a comment below. We read all of them.
Join the discussion
Spotted an error, or have a result of your own? We read every comment.