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Cryptogram Solver

Paste a cryptogram or cryptoquote. Solve it yourself with the letter key, or press Auto-solve to see the most likely answer.

The Cryptogram Solver is a free online tool that solves a substitution cryptogram: paste in the coded text, and it works out which symbol or number stands for which letter. It runs in your browser with no sign-up. It handles cryptoquotes and other simple substitution puzzles, and it also reads number codes where A=1 through Z=26.

This is a cryptogram solver for your own puzzle, not a source of cryptogram answers. It does not hold a database of newspaper or daily answers, so paste the text you want decoded. You can work through the key by hand, or run Auto-solve to get a best reading with alternatives.

How to use the Cryptogram Solver

  1. Paste your cryptogram into the input box. Keep the spaces between words, because the word search works word by word. For number codes, separate letters with spaces, commas or dashes, and separate words with a slash, such as 8-5-12-12-15 / 23-15-18-12-4.
  2. Click Solve It Myself to show the key and the board, or click Auto-solve to let the tool search for an answer.
  3. In the key, each distinct symbol appears with its count, such as 3x, with the most frequent first. Type the letter you think it stands for. The board and the Plain text line update as you type, and typing a letter moves the cursor to the next box.
  4. Watch for a letter used for two symbols. The tool flags it in red. The status line shows how many symbols you have set, as in “N of M symbols set.”
  5. If Auto-solve gets a name or rare word wrong, fix that letter by hand. Keep Keep letters I set ticked, then run Auto-solve again so your letters stay fixed.
  6. Click Clear Key to start over.

Try an Example loads a short puzzle that uses a Caesar shift of 3, so you can see how the board works before using your own text. Click Print to print the page with the working board, which shows each cipher symbol with your guessed letter underneath. Punctuation and apostrophes stay in place, and letter case does not matter.

What is a cryptogram, and how do you solve one?

A cryptogram is a short text in which every letter has been swapped for another symbol using one fixed code, so the same plain letter is always the same symbol. Solving it means finding the one letter each symbol stands for. Start with the symbols that appear most often, test each guess against the whole text, and when a guess produces a word that cannot exist, undo it. The Solve It Myself key lists the symbols with their counts for exactly this reason.

How to solve a cryptogram by hand

Work from the most certain letters outward, writing each guess into the key so it fills in everywhere at once.

  • One-letter words are almost always A or I.
  • The most common three-letter word is THE; look for a three-symbol word that appears more than once.
  • An apostrophe followed by one symbol is usually S or T (IT’S, DON’T).
  • Double symbols are often LL, EE, SS or OO.
  • The most frequent symbol is usually E, then T, A and O: the key above lists symbols most-frequent first for that reason.
  • Look for word shapes: a symbol pattern like 1-2-3-3-4 (HELLO, GREEN) or 1-2-1 (DID, EYE) narrows the choice quickly.
  • When a guess leads to a word that cannot exist, undo it: clear that box and the puzzle updates.

Cryptogram examples with answers

Here are three cryptograms with their answers, each built from a well-known saying. Every example uses its own random key, and no letter in the coded text stands for itself.

Example 1 (Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack)

Coded: TNYY PUSN BR WNHHNM HADS TNYY RDBP. Answer: WELL DONE IS BETTER THAN WELL SAID.

The word TNYY appears twice and ends in a doubled symbol, YY. Doubled letters in English are often LL, EE, SS or OO, and TNYY is WELL.

Example 2 (William Shakespeare, Hamlet)

Coded: XJWQUEG UL EYW LIAV IN DUE. Answer: BREVITY IS THE SOUL OF WIT.

The three-letter word EYW is THE. The two-letter word UL is IS, which confirms several letters at once.

Example 3 (Proverb)

Coded: LKUVMFG GRXLQ NMTWXA UELF SMAWG. Answer: ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS.

This line has no one-letter words, so start with the longer words. GRXLQ is SPEAK and SMAWG is WORDS: the symbol G starts one and ends the other, and it stands for S.

To check your work, paste any coded line into the solver on this page and watch it solve, or work through it by hand using the letter key.

How Auto-solve works

Auto-solve first searches the word list for words that fit each cipher word’s pattern, trying the most limited words first and common words before rare ones. Then it scores candidate texts by how English they look, using letter-combination statistics and real-word matches. Because it is a score rather than a proof, short puzzles can have more than one valid answer, which is why the tool offers alternatives.

Cryptogram rules

Each plain letter maps to exactly one symbol, and each symbol maps back to exactly one letter, so two different letters never share a symbol. Spaces and punctuation are usually left as they were, and some puzzles give a few letters as hints. A cryptoquote, sometimes called a cryptoquip, is a cryptogram whose plain text is a quotation, often with the author given as a clue. The tool solves simple substitution only: a Caesar shift is one example, but ciphers whose code changes along the text, such as Vigenère, are not supported.

Frequently asked questions

Is the cryptogram solver free?

Yes. The tool is free to use, runs in your browser, and needs no sign-up.

Is my puzzle uploaded?

No. Everything runs in your browser, and nothing you type or paste is uploaded. The word list and scoring data load the first time you use the tool.

Can the cryptogram solver solve a Caesar cipher?

Yes. A Caesar shift is a simple substitution, so the tool solves it the same way as any other cryptogram. Click Try an Example to see one with a shift of 3.

Where do I find cryptogram answers for today’s puzzle?

The tool does not hold answers to newspaper or daily cryptograms. Paste the puzzle text you have, and it will work out the solution from the coded letters.

Can it solve a Vigenère cipher?

No. The tool only handles simple substitution, where one symbol always stands for one letter. Ciphers whose code changes along the text will not solve.

Will Auto-solve always give the right answer?

Not always. Short puzzles can have more than one valid reading, and names or rare words may come out wrong. Fix the letters you know, keep Keep letters I set ticked, and run Auto-solve again.

  • Cryptogram Maker: Create your own cryptogram and send it here to check that it solves.
  • Cryptograms: Use this when you want more cryptogram puzzles to work through.
  • Caesar Cipher: Use this to shift text forward or back by a set amount.
  • Codeword Solver: Use this for codeword puzzles, where numbers stand for letters across a grid.
  • Word Unscrambler: Use this when you have a set of letters and need to find the words they make.
  • Anagram Solver: Use this to find every word that can be made from a set of letters.
  • Hangman: Use this to play a word-guessing game.
  • Crossword Solver: Use this when you know some letters of a crossword answer and need the words that fit.

How substitution ciphers work

In cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encrypting that creates the ciphertext (its output) by replacing units of the plaintext (its input) in a defined manner, with the help of a key; the "units" may be single letters (the most common), pairs of letters, triplets of letters, mixtures of the above, and so forth. The receiver deciphers the text by performing the inverse substitution process to extract the original message.

Substitution ciphers can be compared with transposition ciphers. In a transposition cipher, the units of the plaintext are rearranged in a different and usually quite complex order, but the units themselves are left unchanged. By contrast, in a substitution cipher, the units of the plaintext are retained in the same sequence in the ciphertext, but the units themselves are altered.

There are a number of different types of substitution cipher. If the cipher operates on single letters, it is termed a simple substitution cipher; a cipher that operates on larger groups of letters is termed polygraphic. A monoalphabetic cipher uses fixed substitution over the entire message, whereas a polyalphabetic cipher uses a number of substitutions at different positions in the message, where a unit from the plaintext is mapped to one of several possibilities in the ciphertext and vice versa.

The first ever published description of how to crack simple substitution ciphers was given by Al-Kindi in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages written around 850 AD. The method he described is now known as frequency analysis.

In modern cryptography

Substitution ciphers as discussed above, especially the older pencil-and-paper hand ciphers, are no longer in serious use. However, the cryptographic concept of substitution carries on even today. From an abstract perspective, modern bit-oriented block ciphers (e.g., DES, or AES) can be viewed as substitution ciphers on a large binary alphabet. In addition, block ciphers often include smaller substitution tables called S-boxes. See also substitution–permutation network.

In popular culture

In 1843, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold-Bug", based on pirate stories and the breaking of a substitution cipher, won a grand prize in the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper's short story contest.

Sherlock Holmes breaks a substitution cipher in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men". There, the cipher remained undeciphered for years if not decades; not due to its difficulty, but because no one suspected it to be a code, instead considering it childish scribblings.

The Standard Galactic Alphabet, the writing system in the Commander Keen video games and in Minecraft.

The Al Bhed language in Final Fantasy X is actually a substitution cipher, although it is pronounced phonetically (i.e. "you" in English is translated to "oui" in Al Bhed, but is pronounced the same way that "oui" is pronounced in French).

The Minbari's alphabet from the Babylon 5 series is a substitution cipher from English.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article “Substitution cipher” (revision 1362628480, 2026-07-05), authors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Shortened: some sections and paragraphs were left out, and reference markers, images and templates were removed; wording is otherwise unchanged. This text remains available under the same licence.