Connections is released at midnight in your time zone. In order to accommodate all time zones, there will be two Connections Companions live every day, dated based on Eastern Standard Time. If you find yourself on the wrong companion, check the number of your puzzle and go to this page to find the corresponding companion.

Today’s Connections categories were a bit confusing and had an odd combination of words that left me thinking for a while. It took me three wrong submissions to finally guess all the categories correctly. So, here are the NYT Connections categories for July 18, 2025.

Looking for NYT Connections answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, plus my commentary on the puzzles.

The New York Times Connections presents a daily word puzzle challenging players to identify relationships between 16 words, sorting them into four groups. Hints for today's puzzle include themes like college campus elements,