Privacy, in plain language

Nine-letter play

Nine-letter game data includes versioned nine-letter attempts, dated puzzle progress, found words, tile layouts, clue views, reveals and frozen answer-review results. Collection order and unsubmitted correction drafts are also retained. Nine-letter points stay outside public rankings; creating a challenge sends its board identity and found words to the share service, which validates them and encrypts the result.

Game progress and preferences

Game data includes found words, level progress, numbered Daily sessions, rank achievements, prior Daily completion credit, clue reveals, shuffled layouts, difficulty and sound settings, and recent play activity used by the game.

The app reads this data to preserve progress across boards. Play levels pick a different board when reopened; daily puzzles and friend challenges resume their shared board. Untimed discoveries and points are not uploaded to the leaderboard. Only ranked Timed sessions submit words for public competition; optional analytics of on-page interactions is described below.

Previously started daily bonuses

New Daily games have no clock or speed reward. If an earlier game already has a bonus clock, its recorded start time is retained and its bonus can settle once under those rules. For a public run, completing words are sent to the server for validation using its recorded start and completion times. This does not enter the Timed rankings. No new bonus runs are created.

Timed play data

Timed game data includes your latest session, its board, words, deadline and personal best word count. Ranked sessions also send individual submitted words to the server while you play. The server stores the latest session with its start and end times and words, your all-time best, and up to 31 recent daily best summaries for each duration. Word counts and ranks are public; individual submissions are not shown on the leaderboard. Offline games do not enter public rankings, and timed play does not change Play scores. Removing your public profile also removes its live timed records.

Topic vocabulary practice

Topic game data includes found terms, current wheels, clue reveals, layouts and your own review choices. This data does not enter the public leaderboard; optional analytics of on-page interactions is described below. Topic and shared-topic links identify a subject and board; a result link may include a practice score, but never your found words.

Sharing and invitations

Creating a challenge or sharing a result requests an encrypted invitation from our server. For unranked games, we send the board and discovered words to check the word count and points; these words are processed without being added to the leaderboard or stored as a share record. A ranked timed target uses the completed server session. Unranked timed results are labeled timing-unverified.

The link contains an encrypted board identifier, word count and score, without answers, profile credentials or location. Anyone with the link can open that board and result. The server rejects altered links. Sharing opens your chosen app, copies the link, or prepares an email draft; Wordwheel does not send invitations for you. Creating or opening a protected link needs a connection. Downloaded result images are ordinary images and can be edited outside Wordwheel.

Timed friend games retain their words and original deadline separately from ordinary timed games. They do not enter public rankings. The server keeps its encryption key in restricted persistent storage so links survive restarts; old encrypted links remain usable after profile removal because they contain no profile identity.

Feedback

Send feedback in the More menu submits your selected category and message to a private inbox. No name or email is required; please leave out personal information. We do not attach your game progress or profile to feedback. A receipt appears only after successful submission. Feedback is retained for up to 90 days. A temporary in-memory rate limiter helps prevent abuse, and hosting logs may separately process network information as described below. A reply is not guaranteed.

Private word correction reports

Submitting a report sends the versioned board reference, word, issue category and optional explanation to a private server inbox. Reports do not attach your profile, email address or IP address. Please do not include personal details in the explanation. The inbox has no public reading endpoint; records are removed after 90 days. A temporary in-memory rate limiter helps prevent abuse. Hosting access logs may separately process network addresses as described below. A receipt confirms durable storage, not acceptance of a correction or a promise to reply.

Optional public leaderboard

Joining creates a public random username and icon; you can edit both. Duplicate usernames receive a numeric suffix. The server stores your profile, submitted words, board identifiers, creation time, and a hash of your profile access key. Your name, icon, best completed Timed word counts and rank are public. If you enable location sharing in your profile, Cloudflare estimates your country, region and city from your network connection. The server stores this approximate area, displays it beside your name and enables country filtering of Timed rankings. It does not request GPS or store coordinates or IP addresses in the leaderboard database. Areas can be inaccurate, particularly with a VPN; missing locations remain in worldwide rankings. The first available area stays associated with the profile. Turning location sharing off removes the stored area and removes it from country-filtered results. Scores are checked against the game dictionary.

No email or password is needed. Use Remove public profile in the leaderboard to delete its live server record. Infrastructure logs or restricted backups may remain.

Web requests and hosting

Loading this website sends ordinary connection information to our hosting infrastructure and Cloudflare, which delivers and protects the site. That information can include your IP address, requested URL, browser information, timestamps, and referrer information. Infrastructure services may process or log these requests for delivery, reliability, and security. This notice does not promise a specific retention period for infrastructure logs.

Cloudflare may use security-related cookies depending on the protections applied to your visit. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy for its practices.

Dictionary meanings

Every accepted word has a meaning bundled with the game. Definitions appear immediately without sending the word or your progress to a dictionary service. General-play meanings come from WordNet and Wiktionary contributors, with source and licence links. Topic packs use original introductory Wordwheel notes and examples with references for further reading. Wiktionary excerpts are adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Following a source link opens the external dictionary website.

Optional Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity

Your choices

Removing saved game data resets progress and preferences. Deleted progress may not be recoverable.

Copy link or Copy daily challenge puts only the protected game link on your clipboard when you choose that action. Completed timed games can create portrait result images. Save image downloads the PNG; Share image opens your device’s share menu when file sharing is supported. The image contains a word count, date and wheel letters, not your answers. Wordwheel does not post it to social media for you.

External links and changes

Links to other websites follow those sites’ own privacy practices. This notice will be updated if the game’s data handling changes. The date below identifies this version.