Since the New York Times’ acquired Wordle, the daily word puzzle game has shifted to the NYT website. Though the game continues to be ad-free and still has the same gameplay with all the features like hard mode and dark mode intact, notable changes are likely on the cards.
While some are worried NYT will paywall the game and allow only premium subscribers to unlock its full potential, others are concerned Wordle will undergo significant changes that could change the gameplay. If you also fear possible changes, you may want to save Wordle on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac locally to play the game offline forever.
This detailed guide below talks about five ways to download the original Wordle game on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
1. Save Wordle on iPhone, iPad, and Mac Using WordleForever Shortcut
MacStories has introduced a super-handy shortcut called “WordleForever” that allows you to save the game on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac with ease. Bear in mind that the shortcut requires iOS 15.4/iPadOS 15.4 or later (currently in beta) and macOS Monterey or later.
Step 1: First and foremost, download the “WordleForever” shortcut from MacStories.
Step 2: Now, open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac and run the WordleForever shortcut.
Step 3: Next, allow the shortcut to download Wordle files on your device.
That’s pretty much it! In the future, you will be able to run the Wordle game any time on your device using the WordleForever shortcut.
2. Save Wordle Offline in Safari on iPhone and iPad
What if your device is not running iOS 15.4/iPadOS 15.4? You can download Wordle offline in Safari to play the game without issues.
Step 1: To get started, ensure that Safari downloads an offline copy of Wordle and any other webpage you add to the Reading List. To do so, head over to the Settings app on your iPhone > Safari. After that, make sure to turn on the Automatically Save Offline toggle. From now on, Safari will store anything you save to Reading List on iCloud.
Step 2: Now, we need to save Wordle offline. For this, launch Safari and navigate to this page on NYT’s site. Then, tap the Share button in the toolbar and choose Add to Reading List in the share sheet.
Note that if the Automatically Save Offline switch is not turned on already, a popup may appear asking you to enable it. Be sure to hit Save Automatically in the popup to enable the feature.
Step 3: To play the game, open a new tab in Safari and find Wordle. It should appear under the Reading List header on your start page.
If the Reading List section doesn’t appear on your start page, make sure to enable it in Safari’s start page preferences. Besides, you can also tap on the tiny book icon in the toolbar from a new tab and select Wordle from the Reading List. If it doesn’t show up straight away, use the search bar to find it.
Another way to fix this issue is to tap on Show All at the bottom to access all the reading content. Now, go ahead and play the daily word game to your heart’s content.
It’s worth pointing out that you can take advantage of Safari’s Web Inspector to verify whether Safari saved Wordle perfectly or not. Head into the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad > Safari > Advanced. Now, turn on the toggle next to Web Inspector.
After that, connect your iPhone to your Mac using the Lightning cable and fire up Safari on your Mac. Next, click Develop in the menu bar > select your iPhone > Wordle to check its contents.
3. Save Wordle in Files App on iPhone and iPad
Alternately, you can also save Wordle offline in the Files app on your iPhone. If you find it inconvenient to access this game from Safari’s Reading List or would rather keep it in the stock files app for quicker access, this method won’t disappoint you.
Step 1: Launch Safari on your iPhone and head to the Wordle page on NYT’s website.
Step 2: Now, tap on the Share button in the toolbar and hit Options at the top. In the menu that appears, choose Web Archive and then tap Done. Now, select Save to Files in the share sheet.
Step 3: Next, save the “.webarchive” file to the desired location. Though you get the option to save it in the “On My iPhone” folder, it will be available locally only. To play Wordle on all your Apple devices, make sure to save it in iCloud Drive.
Step 4: In the end, tap Save to finish.
To play Wordle on your iPhone, launch the Files app, head over to the “.webarchive” file, and tap it. Now, long-press on the Wordle .webarchive and choose Share. Alternately, tap the Share icon after opening the archive.
Due to a rendering bug that Apple is yet to fix, Safari won’t appear in the list of options on the share sheet. Therefore, you will need to rely on a different tool to resolve this issue. Unfortunately, Google Chrome, DuckDuckGo, and Firefox don’t seem to play nice with web archives. However, Microsoft Edge and Documents by Readdle work reliably. After you’ve chosen an app, open the Files app and tap on the “.webarchive” file to open it directly in the app you selected.
4. Download Wordle on Mac via Safari
On Mac, you can take advantage of the Safari Webpage Archive feature to save Wordle locally without any hassle.
Step 1: Open Safari on your Mac and navigate to the Wordle webpage. Then, click on the File menu at the top left corner of the screen and choose Save As.
Step 2: Now, choose Webpage Archive as the preferred format and save the file.
You can open this file directly in Safari to play Wordle locally on your Mac from now onwards.
5. Download Wordle Locally on Mac via Command Line
Well, I have saved this hack for command-line pros. If you are one of them, you would be glad to know that there is also a way to download an entire Wordle webpage on Mac and mirror it locally with wget. Keep in mind that wget doesn’t come with macOS anymore, and you will have to rely on Homebrew or build from the source. It will let you download the entire game archive to PWD that you can run on any web browser. Check out the following command to download the whole website.
wget -m https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/
So, that’s how you can save Wordle on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac locally to play offline. Personally, I will be keeping a close eye on the changes that this daily word game will go through. Though I don’t think NYT will bring any radical changes, I believe the game will see a transformation. Hence, I’m saving my verdict for later. What about you? If you found this guide helpful, do let us know in the comments section.
