Solve crossword puzzles in News on Mac
With macOS Sonoma, Apple News+ subscribers can solve daily crossword and crossword mini puzzles. Nonsubscribers may be able to play a few puzzles for free.
Note: Apple News, Apple News+, and puzzles aren’t available in all countries or regions. See the Apple Support article Availability of Apple Media Services.
View the Puzzles feed
Do one of the following in the News app on your Mac:
Click Puzzles in the sidebar.
Click the Today feed, scroll down to the Puzzles group, then click the Puzzles title.
Note: You can start a new crossword puzzle by filling in the featured clue in the Today feed.
Choose a puzzle
You can select the kind of puzzle you want to solve—crossword or crossword mini—and choose a new puzzle or a puzzle from the archive. Each crossword puzzle has a difficulty rating: easy, moderate, or challenging.
In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.
Click a puzzle to open it.
Display puzzles in grid view or list view
You can display puzzles in the traditional grid view, or instead show clues and answers in a list.
In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.
Click a puzzle to open it.
Click List view or Grid view .
Solve a puzzle
The way you solve a puzzle depends on whether you’re using grid view or list view.
Grid view: Click a square to select a word, then enter the answer. You move to other squares as you type.
To switch from across to down, or vice versa, click the selected square again, or click a clue in the opposite direction.
List view: Click a clue, then enter the answer. You move on to other clues as you type.
Note: You don’t have to solve puzzles in one sitting; you can return at any time. The timer pauses while you’re away.
Get help with answers
If you’re unsure of an answer you’ve entered, you can get a little help.
In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.
Click a puzzle to open it.
Click , then choose one of the following:
Autocheck: Check the letters you’ve entered, and any letters you enter from that point forward. Any incorrect letters are marked with a slash.
Check Square, Check Word, Check Puzzle: See any incorrect letters, as indicated by slashes.
Reveal: Display the correct answer to a square, word, or the entire puzzle.
Clear Puzzle: If you’d like a fresh start, you can clear a puzzle’s answers and reset the timer.
Change Puzzles settings
In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.
Click a puzzle to open it.
Click , then click Settings and do any of the following:
Show Timer: Choose whether to show or hide the timer that appears above each puzzle. (You can also click to show or hide it while solving a puzzle.)
Highlight Linked Clues: Some puzzles have clues that refer to other clues. You can choose whether or not to highlight the words that correspond to these clues.
Skip Filled Squares: By default, after entering a letter, the next empty square in the puzzle is selected. Turn this option off to select the square directly to the right or directly below.
At End of Word: Choose Advance If Complete, Always Advance, or Don’t Advance.
You can also click to learn more about the puzzle and the Share button to share it using Messages, Mail, and more.
Follow the feed for a puzzle type
If you want quick access to a specific type of puzzle (crossword or crossword mini), you can follow that type.
In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.
Click Crossword or Crossword Mini.
Click the Share button , then click Follow.
A Puzzles category appears in the sidebar with the puzzle type below. To make that option a favorite, Control-click the puzzle type, then click Add to Favorites.
View past puzzles
In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.
Click next to Crossword or Crossword Mini. (You may need to scroll down.)
Click a puzzle below Archive to open it. Or, to view the complete puzzle archive, click next to Archive, then click a puzzle to open it.
To show sorting and filtering options for the complete archive, click . You can sort from newest to oldest or oldest to newest. You can filter the Crossword archive by completeness and difficulty level. You can filter the Crossword Mini archive by completeness only.
Get Puzzles notifications
In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.
Click the Share button , click Manage Notifications, then turn on Sports below Alerts from Apple News.
Remove the Puzzles group from Today
In the News app on your Mac, click the Today feed, then click the More button next to the Puzzles heading.
Click Block from Today.
When you block Puzzles, the group no longer appears in your Today feed.