1. Why?

Hi there! My name is Advay Bajpai, and I am a student at UCLA (go bruins!) and creator of NYTPlus.

I love the Daily Mini, and to a greater extent, crosswords in general. It's a fun game that everyone should try at least once. The NYT Mini is a bite-sized version of the traditional NYT Crossoword that is released every day, and is a great way to get into crosswords without the intimidation factor of a full 15x15.

However, in Summer 2025, the NYT Mini was placed behind a paywall preventing the majority of its users from playing. Similarly, the NYT Mini is limited to a singular daily play; a restriction that severely limits the enjoyability of the Mini. These two factors were the impetus behind NYTPlus, which allows for infinite plays, stats-tracking, and more.

2. Puzzle Collection

Every day, at about 9 PM, I collect the next day's NYT crossword. I am NOT screen-scraping the NYT Games site, but rather utilizing their daily mini JSON (which is *technically* publically available), which is then cached and stored to be used in NYTPlus.

3. Costs

It costs a decent bit to run the NYTPlus server and infrastructure, especially with the amount of traffic the site has been getting. I also manage, fix bugs, and respond to emails from this site in my free time amidst college/work/other stuff. The site is currently being maintained and funded out-of-pocket by me, but if you would like to contribute to the costs, please consider donating at this link.

4. Data

NYTPlus only has access to your profile picture and public email. The site never accesses any forbidden scopes (and you can check this for yourself when first signing in via a service provider, too).

6. Legalities

Hmm.

8. Final Thoughts

There are still a plethora of bugs and issues on this site. If you find them, send me an email: advayb2018 [at] gmail [.] com.