Daily Sudoku

Because the grid is the same for everyone on a given date, you can swap times and tactics with a friend or relative. Each grid has exactly one correct solution, and you can reach it with logic alone.

How daily sudoku works

The grid has 81 squares arranged in nine rows, nine columns and nine smaller 3 by 3 boxes. Some squares already hold numbers, called givens. Fill every empty square with a digit from 1 to 9 so that each row, each column and each box contains every digit exactly once. There is no arithmetic involved. It is all about where each number can and cannot go.

The difficulty follows the days of the week, so the puzzle grows a little harder as the week goes on.

• Monday and Tuesday: easy puzzles, a gentle start to the week.
• Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday: medium puzzles, where pencil notes start to help.
• Friday and Saturday: hard puzzles, for when you have a little more time.

Your daily streak

A streak counter shows how many days in a row you have solved the daily puzzle. Solve today and the streak grows by one. Miss a day and it starts again from zero. The streak is stored on your own device, so it belongs to the browser you play in.

There is no New game button on this page, because there is only one puzzle each day. If you want to start today's grid again from the beginning, press Restart. When you have finished, come back tomorrow for the next one. If you would like more puzzles in the meantime, the easy, medium and hard pages offer as many new grids as you like.

Controls and tools

• Click or tap a square to select it. Its row, column and box light up, and matching numbers are highlighted.
• Tap a number on the pad, or press 1 to 9 on a keyboard, to fill the square. Use the arrow keys to move around the grid.
• Press Backspace to clear a square, and Undo or the U key to step back through your moves.
• Switch on Notes, or press N, to write small pencil marks for the numbers a square might hold.
• Tick Highlight mistakes if you want a wrong number to show in red as soon as you place it.
• Press Hint, or the H key, once to see where to look. Press it again and the square is filled in for you.
• Pause hides the board and stops the timer. Large makes the squares and numbers bigger, and the dark theme suits late-night solving.

Scoring and personal bests

The timer starts with your first move and stops when you pause or switch to another tab. Easy days begin with 1000 points, medium days with 1500 and hard days with 2000. You lose one point for each second, 50 for each hint and 25 for each mistake. Your moves are counted too, and your personal best is kept in your own browser. Progress is saved as you go, so a refresh simply picks up where you left off.

Tips for solving the daily puzzle

Early in the week

Easy puzzles fall to scanning. Pick a digit, look at a box that is missing it, and use the same digit in nearby rows and columns to rule out squares. When only one square is left, the digit goes there. Work through every digit in turn.

Midweek and Sunday

Medium puzzles need a little more patience. Once the obvious numbers are placed, switch on Notes and write the possible digits in the remaining squares. Look for a square with only one note left, or a digit that can only go in one place within a row, column or box.

Friday and Saturday

Hard puzzles reward careful notes. Look for two squares in the same row, column or box that share the same two candidates. Those two digits must go in those two squares, so you can remove them from the other squares nearby. Take your time and pause whenever you need a break.

A simple daily routine

1. Open the page at a time that suits you, perhaps with breakfast or after lunch.
2. Look at the day of the week so you know roughly how hard the puzzle will be.
3. Start with the digits that appear most often among the givens.
4. Use notes once the easy placements run out.
5. If you are stuck, try one hint to see where to look before asking for the answer.

Variations to try

If the daily puzzle leaves you wanting more, the easy, medium and hard pages each have an endless supply of new grids. For a different kind of challenge, killer sudoku adds cages with small totals and uses simple addition alongside the usual rules.

A short history of the daily puzzle

Number placement puzzles of this kind are usually traced back to puzzle magazines in the late twentieth century, and the name sudoku comes from Japan. The puzzle became a worldwide habit in the mid-2000s, when many newspapers began printing a new grid every day. A daily puzzle soon became part of the morning routine for a great many people, and that is the tradition this page carries on.

Common questions