About

strandssolver.org is a free, fast, privacy-friendly tool for players of The New York Times Strands. Paste any Strands letter grid into the box on the home page and you'll instantly get:

• Every dictionary word the grid can produce, grouped by length and sortable by the shape that matters to you,
• Candidate spangrams — words whose path touches two opposite edges of the board, the way NYT defines the spangram,
• An exclude-found-words mode so you can cross words off as you find them in the app and focus on what's left,
• One-click copy for any word, plus Copy All and native Share on mobile.

How it works

The solver walks every path through your grid using 8-direction adjacency (orthogonal and diagonal), with a trie-based prefix check over the ENABLE word list to prune dead ends. The dictionary and the algorithm are both loaded on your device — your grid is never sent to a server.

Why we built it

Most existing Strands solvers are slow on phones, full of intrusive ads, or lack the small features that make a solver useful — like excluding words you've already found. This one is designed mobile-first, solves in tens of milliseconds, and keeps the UI out of your way.

Not affiliated with the NYT

strandssolver.org is an independent, fan-built project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by The New York Times Company. "Strands" and "The New York Times" are trademarks of their respective owners.

Got feedback?

Something broken? A feature you'd love? Use the contact page.