Browser extension
The browser extension loads the assistant along with the Spelling Bee website. It is available for Chrome and Edge.
Spelling Bee Assistant is an add-on for Spelling Bee, the New York Times’ popular word puzzle. It’s packed with features that will boost your playing experience.
Follow your progress, see what lies ahead of you and if you want to, get a hint or two. Eventually, when you run out of ideas, reveal today’s answers - no more waiting until the next day!
Spelling Bee Assistant is a great improvement for this excellent game and it won’t spoil the fun. Promised!
Installation
By installing this software you agree to the terms of the GNU General Public License v3.0.
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Bookmarklet
Alternatively, you can launch the assistant via a bookmarklet. To set it up, simply drag the amber badge to your browser's bookmarks bar.
Feature Overview
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The main panel
All tools in the main panel work in the same fashion; they show you how many items you’ve found so far (✓), how many are still in the pot (?) and the sum thereof (∑).
- "Score" represents your all-over progress for both, words and points.
- "Letter count" groups the terms by word length.
- "First letter" groups them by their first letter.
- "First two letters" is similar, but obviously, it's more revealing.
- "Pangrams" displays the number of pangrams.
Greyed out lines indicate that all terms in a row have been found.
On desktop, just click on to quickly pull up the Grid.
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The Assistant menu
Show Assistant lets you show or hide the main panel. Score, Letter count, First letter, First two letters and Pangrams do the same for each section.
The Progress Bar is a visual indicator of your all-over progress.
The Grid is a matrix grouping the terms by first letter and word length.
Spill the beans validates your answer while you type.
Dark Mode and Dark Mode Colors provide a configurable dark color scheme.
Your Progress explains in detail what you already achieved.
Community shows how to connect to like-minded hiveminds.
Today’s Answers should be the last resort.
Use the Buy me a coffee link if you want to show some appreciation...
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The Progress Bar displays your advancement based on your points so far. You can click on it to reveal the more detailed Your Progress screen.
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With every letter you type, the Spill the beans emoji reveals whether you’re on the right track or barking up the wrong tree.
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If you prefer darker interfaces, SBA's Dark Mode is for you. The default theme is too boring - you want it more colorful? Try…
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…the Dark Mode configuration. You can pick your favorite out of twelve different color schemes.
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An overview of the different ranks and how far you made it into your journey. You can also launch the Your Progress screen by clicking on the Progress Bar.
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Letter count and First letter from the main panel give you a brief overview of the words that you’ve found and those that remain. The Grid screen combines these two views into a handy matrix.
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Bingo, Perfect Pangram, GN4L - confused yet? The NYT has a glossary of common terms Spelling Bee fans use when talking about their favorite game. Some terms refer to game features and some are addidtional fun challenges.
So, where is this community? Well, there is more then just one way to join fellow players and the Assistant will you show you how to find them.
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When you’re eventually out of words but are dying to know the solution, the Today’s Answers screen will satisfy your curiosity!
All words are linked to the respective terms in Google; maybe this will help you next time!
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Spelling Bee Assistant uses responsive design and has been tested on many screen sizes. If the system requirements are met, it should run on your mobile device.
System requirements
Spelling Bee Assistant requires a modern web browser in a recent version. Below is a chart with Browser/OS combinations that are known to be working:
| Browser | Windows | MacOS | Ubuntu | Android | iOS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blink ¹|² | ² | ? | |||
| WebKit ³|⁴ | n/a | ³ | ⁴ | n/a | ³ |
- Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi…
- Kiwi
- Safari
- Gnome Web
To install it on mobile devices, follow the instructions below.
Thanks to Alex for contributing the iOS instructions and hosting the shortcut.
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Android: Use the extension with Kiwi
- Download Kiwi Browser from the Google Play Store.
- Open Kiwi and navigate to the Spelling Bee Assistant’s page on the Chrome Web Store.
- Select Add to Chrome to install the extension.
- Review the security warning that appears; if acceptable, confirm by tapping OK.
The extension will now be active whenever you visit the Spelling Bee game on Kiwi, enhancing your gameplay experience.
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iOS / iPadOS: Use a shortcut on Safari
- Open the Settings app. Navigate to Shortcuts > Advanced and enable Allow Running Scripts to let shortcuts run scripts like those of Spelling Bee Assistant.
- Access the shortcut by opening this link. Tap Get Shortcut and then Add.
- To use the shortcut, open Spelling Bee in Safari and access the Share menu. Find and run SB Assistant.
- Upon first run, a security warning appears. If you agree, tap Allow.
To keep it handy, pin SB Assistant to the top of your share sheet by tapping Edit Actions… and selecting the green plus next to the SB Assistant action.
Doesn’t it spoil the game?
I try to keep Spelling Bee Assistant as subtle and unobstrusive as possible. Judging from user feedback as well my own experience, this concept works out just fine.
The challenge stays the same and so does the fun. But now you have a set of little helpers at hand when you’re stuck in a corner.
What is a bookmarklet?
Bookmarklets are small pieces of code that can enhance the functionality of a website. They reside, just like regular bookmarks, in your browser’s bookmark menu. Unfortunately, there is no straightforward way to assign an icon to them.
I discovered a bug | I’d like to give feedback
You can report bugs or request features at GitHub. Keep in mind that this is a fun weekend project and I don’t want it to be a burden. I might work on issues from time to time, but I can’t make any promises.
You can also find me at r/NYTSpellingBee where I regularly post the latest updates under the handle spellingBeeAssistant.
Is the NYT behind this or are you affiliated with the NYT?
No, no affiliation whatsover. They know that Spelling Bee Assistant exists and rumor has it that some of them are even users...
Your privacy
This website does not employ any technology to collect personally identifiable information about its visitors. Both the site and the associated bookmarklet are hosted on GitHub Pages. For details on the data GitHub Pages collects, please consult their privacy policy. Regardless, I have no access to the data collected by GitHub.
Regarding the browser extension associated with this site: When installing the extension from a browser add-on store, you might see a message stating, "This extension can read and change your data on www.nytimes.com [...]", or something similar. Such messages can understandably lead to privacy concerns. However, the extension is designed solely to read data from the Spelling Bee game; it does not access, modify, or submit any personal information.
Although most add-on stores offer download statistics, these are typically aggregated by country and do not include any personally identifiable information.