Free word puzzle online

Free, instant, in your browser

Most "free" games online are not really free once you count the sign-up wall, the download, and the pile of permissions you have to agree to first. Shordle is free in the plain sense. You go to the page and the puzzle is there. There is no paywall, no trial, no premium tier waiting to upsell you halfway through a guess.

It is a free word puzzle with no download. The whole game runs as a web page, so it works the same on a laptop, a phone, or a tablet. If your device has a modern browser, it can play. That is the appeal of a browser word game: no install, no waiting on a progress bar, just the puzzle.

A word game with no sign up

You can play a word puzzle free with no account. Shordle does not ask for an email, a password, or a login through some other service. Your daily result is kept on your own device, so there is nothing to register and nothing to log into the next day.

Here is what you do not need to start playing:

• No app store. The game loads in the browser, so there is nothing to find or update.
• No account. No email, no password, no "continue with" button.
• No payment. It is free, with no card on file and no in-app purchases.
• No cookie banner to accept. The game does not set tracking cookies, so there is no consent pop-up in the way.

That short list is the whole pitch for a word game with no sign up: open it and you are in.

What a PWA is, in plain words

Shordle is a PWA, short for progressive web app. That is a web page that your browser can treat like an installed app. You add it to your home screen, it gets its own icon, and it opens in its own window without the browser address bar around it. Under the hood it is still the same web page, so you get the convenience of an app without the download and update cycle of a store.

An installable word game like this is the middle ground a lot of people want. It feels like a real app on the home screen, but it stays a browser word game you can also just open in a tab whenever you like.

How to install Shordle to your home screen

Installing takes a few seconds and is completely optional. The steps differ a little by platform.

On iPhone or iPad (Safari): open shordle.app, tap the Share button (the square with the arrow), scroll down, and tap "Add to Home Screen". Confirm the name and tap Add. The Shordle icon now sits on your home screen like any other app.

On Android (Chrome): open shordle.app, tap the three-dot menu in the top corner, and tap "Install app" or "Add to Home screen". Chrome often shows an install prompt on its own after a visit or two, so you may be able to tap that instead.

On desktop (Chrome or Edge): look for a small install icon at the right edge of the address bar and click it, or open the browser menu and choose "Install Shordle". It then opens in its own window.

An offline word game once it is loaded

Because Shordle is a PWA, it works offline. After your first visit, the game files are stored on your device, so you can open it again on a plane, on the subway, or anywhere the signal drops and it still loads. The daily word for that date is there and you can play it without a connection.

An offline word game is genuinely useful for a commute or a flight. You do not have to plan ahead or download anything special. Visit once on a normal connection and the app remembers itself for next time.

A privacy friendly word game

Shordle is built to respect your privacy. It does not collect personal data, it does not ask you to log in, and it does not set tracking cookies, which is why you never see a cookie consent banner. There is no profile of you being built in the background.

To be straight with you, the site does use analytics, just the privacy-friendly kind. It runs Plausible, which is cookieless and counts visits in aggregate without storing personal data or tracking you across other sites. So it is not "no analytics at all". It is analytics that do not follow you around. For a game you can play without an account, that is the honest version of a privacy friendly word game.

And the puzzle itself

A friction-free wrapper would not matter if the puzzle were dull, so here is the game. Shordle is a daily word puzzle with one twist: the board starts in the dark. There is one secret five-letter word each day, the same for everyone, and you have six guesses to find it.

Before you can read the board you have to light it up. On a desktop your cursor is the flashlight; on a phone you drag a finger or, if you turn it on, tilt the device using the gyroscope. A 60-second battery drains while you play, so you cannot stare at the board forever. After each guess the tiles turn green, yellow, or gray to tell you how close you were, the same colour code Wordle players already know.

If you want the details, the how to play guide walks through the rules and controls. You can also read more about the daily word game format, why the five-letter format became the standard, or how the word game in the dark mechanic actually feels. If you are shopping around, our roundup of Wordle alternatives puts it in context.