The New York Times’ acquisition of Wordle has many players worried about the game’s future, but thankfully, a trick for iPhone and iPad makes it possible to keep playing Wordle entirely free for years to come. Right at the start of 2022, the year kicked off with a game no one could stop talking or Tweeting about: Wordle. The web-based word game asks users players to guess a new word every day in six guesses or fewer. It’s simple, addictive, and one of the most viral games on the planet.
Following a few weeks of constant buzz, The New York Times announced on January 31 that it was purchasing Wordle. It’s confirmed that Wordle will “initially” remain free for new and existing users like it is today, but it’s very likely that’ll change in the near future — either in the form of advertisements or Wordle getting locked behind a monthly subscription. The good news? iPhone and iPad users have a way to keep playing Worlde for free forever even when The New York Times chooses to monetize it.
The key to all of this is a Siri Shortcut called ‘WorldForever.’ Developed by Federico Viticci and Finn Voorhees, WorldForever essentially downloads Worlde’s HTML page and JavaScript files — giving iPhone and iPad users a fully local, offline version of Wordle with thousands of daily words already baked into its code. This means anyone with an iPhone or iPad can download Wordle onto their device and keep playing with new words for years to come, regardless of what The New York Times does with it in the future.
How To Get WordleForever On An iPhone Or iPad
Even better, downloading WordleForever is extremely simple. On your iPhone or iPad, visit MacStories’ website, scroll to the bottom of the page, and tap ‘Get the shortcut here’ in the WordleForever box at the bottom of the article. This then opens the Siri Shortcut app with the WordleForever shortcut. Tap ‘Add Shortcut’ at the bottom of the screen, tap ‘My Shortcuts’ on the bottom navigation bar, and tap the ‘Wordle4Ever’ shortcut. The first time someone tries running the shortcut, they’ll need to tap ‘OK’ and ‘Allow’ on two pop-ups to download Wordle‘s HTML and JavaScript files. Within a couple of seconds, Wordle is up and running just like you’d expect. Now whenever someone wants to play, they can open WordleForever from the Shortcuts app, or by saying ‘Siri, open WordleForever shortcut.’
That said, there are a couple of bugs to keep in mind. For one thing, WordleForever only works on iPhones and iPads running iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4, respectively. If someone’s on 15.3 or earlier, WordleForever downloads just fine but refuses to run. Folks dying to use WordleForever can get public betas for the new iOS and iPadOS versions, or simply wait for them to officially roll out to everyone in the coming weeks. Also, while Wordle‘s ‘Share’ feature works as expected for sharing directly to iMessage, Twitter, etc., the ‘Copy’ button is seemingly broken. Furthermore, any ongoing streak someone has with Wordle doesn’t carry over to WordleForever. Since the iPhone/iPad sees it as running outside of the main Safari app, none of your past playing history carries over. New streaks and gameplay history are saved in WordleForever, but past efforts are unfortunately lost.
Outside of those few quirks, WordleForever is a fantastic solution for iPhone and iPad owners worried about Wordle‘s future. It’s the original game, has all of the same words everyone else is playing on the website, and will keep the game 100 percent free for years. Even if The New York Times ends up putting Wordle behind a paywall, you won’t have to worry about that with WordleForever.
