Minesweeper App for iPhone and Android

What the app is

The app is Minesweeper Worlds Online on a phone or tablet. You get the classic rules, where each number counts the mines among the 8 cells around it, played on an infinite map that is divided into 8x8 areas.

There is no fixed board. You clear an area, move on to the next one, and zoom out to see the terrain you have uncovered: mountains, deserts, forests, oceans and more.

The app is free to play, and the mobile apps show ads, which are covered below. The browser version and the mobile apps are the same game, built from the same code.

Two ways to play on mobile

The home screen has two large buttons. SOLO is your own world, saved to your account, where a mine only locks your own area. ONLINE opens the Shared World, one world dug by every player in the current season.

Below those buttons are three tabs: Home, Challenge and Leaderboard. Challenge holds the daily missions, and with the current setup the daily one is simply "Clear 1 area," so a short session on the bus counts. The ONLINE button shows the season number and how much time is left in it.

Your leaderboard score is the number of areas you have cleared, minus 10 for each area that is currently locked. Restoring a locked area, covered below, is therefore worth doing before you push on.

If you are new to Minesweeper, the app starts with a tutorial that you can skip and replay later from Settings. For the full rules, see How to Play Minesweeper.

Touch controls

• Tap a covered cell to open it.
• Long-press a cell to place or remove a flag.
• Tap a number to chord, which opens its remaining neighbors at once when the flags around it match its value.
• Pinch to zoom and drag to move around the map.

When you are zoomed in far enough to see individual cells, a button in the top bar switches between Reveal mode and Flag mode. In Flag mode a tap places a flag instead of opening the cell. The game remembers your choice on that device.

A wrong flag is dangerous when you chord, because a hidden mine gets opened. Our guide to flags and chording explains when to trust them.

Browser or app: what actually differs

The core game is identical. The differences come from the platform, and these are the ones we can confirm.

• Notifications: the mobile apps can send reminders such as "Restore is ready" and "Your world is waiting." The browser version cannot.
• Ads: the app shows ads, including optional rewarded ads that you can watch to restore a locked area. The browser version currently has no in-game ads.
• Restores: the browser version uses free restores, which refill over time. In the app, you restore a locked area with a free restore when one is available, or by watching a short ad.
• Hints: in the browser, a hint cannot be topped up by watching an ad, because the browser version has no in-game ads.
• Download: the browser version needs no download or sign-up. The app needs an install from the store.

The rules, terrain, continents, areas, tutorial and the eight languages (English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Indonesian) are shared by both.

The same Shared World everywhere

The browser version and the iOS and Android apps connect to the same Shared World. A pioneer on a phone and a pioneer in a browser tab can be working on the same region of the same map, and each sees the other's cells open within a few seconds.

Cleared areas stay cleared for everyone for the rest of the season. When you hit a mine, your area locks only on your own screen, so nobody can block anyone else. Read more in our Shared World guide.

Seasons are limited in time. When one ends, its map becomes view-only and a new world starts on a new seed, and past worlds cannot be revisited.

How progress is saved

The first time you launch the app, it creates an anonymous account. It does not ask for a name or an email address. Your world, scores and settings are stored on nineclove's servers, and other players can see your nickname and country in the Shared World and rankings.

Sound and your flag-mode choice are settings of the device itself and stay there.

Each browser and each device has its own anonymous account, and the app has no sign-in or account-linking screen. Do not expect a Solo world to move between the app and the browser, or between two phones: treat each one as a separate Solo world. The Shared World is the exception, because everyone plays in the same one.

The Shared World needs an internet connection. If you lose the connection, progress is sent when it returns.

Installing it

Use the App Store button on this page if you have an iPhone or iPad, or the Google Play button if you have an Android device. Both open the game's store page, and the install is free.

If you are not sure the game is for you, open it in your browser first. It takes a few seconds, with no sign-up. Our FAQ recommends the app for the smoothest experience on a phone, but we have not published performance comparisons, so try both if you can.

If you like logic puzzles beyond Minesweeper, nineclove also makes Slitherlink and Star Battle for iOS and Android. See games like Minesweeper for how they compare.