Solve puzzles in News on Mac

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.

If you want quick access to a specific type of puzzle (crossword, crossword mini, or Quartiles), you can follow that type.

1. In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.

2. Click Crossword, Mini, or Quartiles.

3. Click the Share button , then click Follow.

A Puzzles category appears in the sidebar with the puzzle type below it. To make that option a favorite, Control-click the puzzle type, then click Add to Favorites.

Apple News+ subscribers can solve crossword, crossword mini, and Quartiles puzzles. You can choose to solve new puzzles or puzzles from the archive. Crossword puzzles have a difficulty rating—easy, moderate, or challenging.

1. In the News app on your Mac, go to one of the following areas to find a puzzle:

   • the Puzzles group in the Today feed or Best of News+ feed

   • the Puzzles feed

   • the feed for a puzzle type (Crossword, Crossword Mini, or Quartiles)

2. Click a puzzle to open it.

New in macOS 14.5 is the Scoreboard found in each puzzle feed. Here you can see your current streak—the number of consecutive days you’ve solved the daily puzzle—and your longest streak. The Scoreboard also provides statistics for each puzzle type—the number of puzzles solved, for example.

Choose the feed for a puzzle type to view the Scoreboard.

Conditions that affect stats and streaks include the following:

• If you use the Reveal command to show all or a portion of a puzzle, the puzzle won’t count toward your stats, and completing the puzzle won’t start or continue a streak.

• Puzzles you complete on a device with macOS 14.5, iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, or later, count toward your stats—your puzzle playing history on older versions doesn’t count.

• After you open the News app on a device with macOS 14.5, iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, or later, any daily puzzles you complete on a device with an earlier version of the OS are added to your streak. For example, if you complete Monday’s crossword and Tuesday’s crossword on your Mac with macOS 14.5, and then solve Wednesday’s crossword on your iPad with iPadOS 17.4, your streak is extended.

• Users in the continental U.S. and Canada must complete a puzzle within 24 hours of its publication for it to count toward a streak. Users in Alaska and Hawaii get an extra hour or two; they must complete the day’s puzzle before midnight local time.

In macOS 14.5 or later, you can compete against friends and other puzzle solvers in Game Center.

1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Game Center in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)

2. Turn on Game Center, then sign in using your Apple ID.

3. Go to the News app on your Mac.

4. Choose News > Settings, then select Game Center.

Your score for the daily puzzle is submitted to the leaderboard for that puzzle type in Game Center. Your score for crossword and crossword mini puzzles is the time it took you to solve the puzzle. For Quartiles, your score is the number of points you earned.

1. In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.

2. Click Crossword, Mini, or Quartiles. (You may need to scroll down.)

3. Click a puzzle below Archive to open it.

   For crossword and crossword mini, you can see more past puzzles in the complete puzzle archive. Click next to Archive, then click a puzzle to open it.

   Tip: To show sorting and filtering options for the complete archive of crossword and crossword mini puzzles, 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.

1. In the News app on your Mac, click Puzzles in the sidebar.

2. Click the Share button , click Manage Notifications, then turn on Puzzles.

1. In the News app on your Mac, click the Today feed, then click the More button next to the Puzzles heading.

2. Click Block from Today.

When you block Puzzles, the group no longer appears in your Today feed.