Zip
Path-planning logic puzzle
Single continuous path that visits numbered dots in order and fills every cell. Great for spatial reasoning and constraint propagation.
Daily Puzzle Guide
LinkedIn Zip: The Daily Puzzle Strategy Guide
LinkedIn Zip is the daily logic puzzle from LinkedIn Games: draw a single path through a grid that visits numbered cells in order while filling every square exactly once. This is the strategy guide we wish existed when we picked it up — rules in 60 seconds, five tactics that work, and a short quiz to test your path-planning instinct.
Zip Strategy Quiz
Question 1 of 7
You open a Zip puzzle on a 5x5 grid with 8 numbered cells. Where should your eye go first?
What is LinkedIn Zip?
LinkedIn Zip is a daily logic puzzle inside LinkedIn Games, added to the lineup after the May 2024 launch of LinkedIn Games (which began with Queens, Pinpoint and Crossclimb). Each Zip puzzle gives you a small grid — usually around 6x6 — with a handful of numbered dots (1, 2, 3, …) and walls between some cells. Your job is to draw one continuous, non-overlapping path that visits the numbered dots in order while filling every cell on the board exactly once. No diagonal moves, no revisiting a cell, walls cannot be crossed. Most players finish in one to three minutes. Zip is free for any LinkedIn member and plays on both desktop web and the LinkedIn mobile app.
The rules in 60 seconds
How LinkedIn Zip works
- The board. A small grid (typically 6x6) with a handful of numbered dots placed on it. The path always begins at 1 and ends at the highest number on the board.
- The path. Draw a single continuous line from one cell to the next using horizontal or vertical moves only — no diagonals.
- The order. The path must visit the numbered cells in numerical order: 1, then 2, then 3, and so on, up to the final number.
- The coverage. Every cell on the board must be visited exactly once. No skipped squares, no revisiting a cell you have already used.
- The walls. Many boards include walls drawn between adjacent cells. Walls block the path — you cannot cross them, so they reshape the set of available neighbors for any given cell.
- The win. Finish a single, complete path that satisfies all of the above. Your time is recorded and shareable, and LinkedIn tracks your daily win streak inside the game.
Why LinkedIn launched Games
Zip is a daily habit, not a one-off feature
LinkedIn shipped its Games suite because daily, short, low-friction interactions are the strongest engagement loop on the internet. A 60-second puzzle gets people opening the app every single morning without any push notification doing the heavy lifting. That is the same logic behind Wordle, the New York Times Games tab, and every successful streak product in the last decade.
The takeaway for anyone building on LinkedIn — recruiters, founders, sales teams, creators — is that LinkedIn understands the value of being part of someone's morning routine. Queens, Pinpoint, Crossclimb, Tango and Zip are how LinkedIn gets you there gently. That same understanding of attention is what good LinkedIn outreach looks like too: short, daily, useful, never spammy.
Strategy guide
5 strategies to consistently solve Zip faster
These five tactics took us from the multi-minute mark to a comfortable one-to-two minute solve, with the easier boards routinely under a minute. They work on every Zip board we have tried.
- 1
Analyze from the most constrained numbered cell, not from 1
The path itself has to start at 1 and end at the final number — that part is fixed. But your planning should start somewhere else: scan all the numbered cells, including walls around them, and find the one with the fewest available neighbors. That is your anchor. Constraints propagate outward from the tightest spot, so the smallest fan-out gives you the highest-signal first deduction and the smallest branching factor for everything that follows.
- 2
Identify forced moves before you draw
A cell with only one open neighbor — counting walls as closed sides — has only one possible entry point. Resolve every forced move in your head before you start dragging. Corners and cells bordered by walls are the usual suspects. These are free decisions, they cost nothing, and they shrink the puzzle dramatically. A typical Zip board has a meaningful chunk of the path forced before you have made a single creative choice.
- 3
Visualize the path as zones, not individual steps
Chunk the grid into zones that must connect through specific corridors. Once zones are clear, the within-zone routing is usually obvious. Path-planners who think in zones solve in linear time; path-planners who think one step at a time get stuck in combinatorial loops.
- 4
Backtrack the moment a dead end appears
If a region of the grid becomes unreachable or a numbered cell gets cut off, stop immediately. Selective backtracking — undoing one segment at a time until the constraint is satisfied — is dramatically faster than a full restart, and it teaches you what failed so you do not repeat the mistake.
- 5
Use parity and the final-number rule to sanity-check the spine
On a Zip board with N cells, the path visits N cells and uses exactly N-1 moves. Trace the high-level shape of the path from 1 to the final number, then sanity-check it: does the path between consecutive numbered cells have enough room to absorb the cells in that region without revisiting, and does the final number sit at a natural end-of-path position (often a corner or a walled-in pocket)? If a candidate spine forces a region to have an odd number of cells left when only an even count works, the spine is wrong — move it before you draw.
Avoid these
Common LinkedIn Zip mistakes
Rushing the first move
Twenty seconds of planning saves a minute of drawing and undoing. The first move is the highest-leverage decision in the puzzle.
Ignoring corner cells
Corners almost always have constrained neighbors and force the path in or out through specific edges. Treat them as anchors.
Missing the walls
Walls between cells are easy to overlook. Scan the board for walls before you start planning — they change the available neighbor count.
Planning the path in number order
The drawn path has to hit the numbers in order, but your analysis does not. Plan from constraints outward — corners, walls, dead-ends — not from 1 upward. You will discover the middle of the path is often dictated by the end of the board.
Restarting instead of backtracking
Full restarts feel productive but waste time. Undo segments one at a time and you will almost always find the fix faster.
Track your habit
Your daily Zip streak
Log your Zip solve each day and watch a private streak build. We store this only in your browser — nothing syncs to a server, nothing posts to your LinkedIn profile. It is a personal accountability widget for the puzzle players who want one.
Your daily Zip streak
Logged privately in your browser. Nothing leaves this device.
Current streak0days
Best streak0days
Personal best—time
The LinkedIn Games lineup
Zip vs Queens vs Pinpoint vs Crossclimb vs Tango
Zip is one of the daily puzzles in LinkedIn Games, alongside Queens, Pinpoint, Crossclimb and Tango. They are all short, they all reset once a day, and each one stretches a different mental muscle. If you enjoy Zip, the others are worth a few minutes too.
Queens
Constraint placement puzzle
Place a queen in each row, column, and colored region so no two queens share a row, column, or touch diagonally. Closer to chess and Sudoku than to Zip.
Pinpoint
Category guessing game
Five clues revealed one at a time, all sharing one connecting category. Guess the category in as few clues as possible. Verbal reasoning and lateral thinking.
Crossclimb
Word ladder puzzle
Solve a vertical word ladder where each rung differs from the next by one letter, then arrange the ladder to fit a final clue. Vocabulary plus logic.
Tango
Binary-grid logic puzzle
Fill a 6x6 grid with suns and moons so each row and column has equal numbers of each, with no three in a row. Constraint solving with a Sudoku flavor.
When the puzzle ends, work begins
Why your LinkedIn skills are bigger than Zip
Zip is a great two-minute ritual. It rewards focus, pattern recognition, and a calm hand. But if LinkedIn is also where you do business — recruiting, prospecting, building a personal brand, running outbound — the skills that actually move numbers are different. They look like consistent daily outreach that does not feel like outreach, finding the right person before your competitor does, and replying to inbound the same hour it lands.
We built LinkedNav for that side of LinkedIn. It handles the parts of outreach that are repetitive and easy to automate so you can spend your time on the parts that are not. If you want the full picture, the LinkedIn sales automation guide walks through how teams use it for outbound, and the LinkedIn AI agent page covers what the autonomous version looks like end to end. If you are still building the basics, the LinkedIn profile review page and the how to create a LinkedIn profile guide are the right starting points.
Questions
LinkedIn Zip FAQ
What is LinkedIn Zip?
LinkedIn Zip is the daily logic puzzle from LinkedIn Games. You draw a single continuous path through a small grid, visiting numbered cells in order and filling every cell exactly once.
Is LinkedIn Zip free to play?
Yes. Zip is free for any LinkedIn member. You do not need Premium, Sales Navigator, Recruiter, or any paid plan to play it.
Do I need LinkedIn Premium to play Zip?
No. Zip is part of LinkedIn Games, which is available to all members at no cost. A free LinkedIn account is enough.
What time does a new Zip puzzle release?
A fresh Zip puzzle drops once per day. The reset typically aligns with midnight local time, so logging in the next day shows you a new board.
Can I replay yesterday's Zip puzzle?
Once a Zip puzzle finishes for the day, LinkedIn does not currently offer a built-in archive to replay older boards. Today's puzzle is the only one available.
How do I see my historical Zip scores?
LinkedIn shows your latest solve time and your current daily streak inside the Zip game, plus shareable stats once you finish. There is no full historical scoreboard with every past time. The streak tracker on this page is a private way to keep your own record, including times if you want them.
What other games does LinkedIn have besides Zip?
LinkedIn Games includes Zip, Queens, Pinpoint, Crossclimb, Tango and a few others. Each is a short daily puzzle designed for a quick break.
How can I solve Zip faster?
Start from the most constrained numbered cell, look for forced moves where a cell has only one available neighbor, and visualize the path as zones before drawing. Practice spotting the spine of the solution first.
Is there a way to get hints in LinkedIn Zip?
LinkedIn Zip does not currently offer in-game hints. The puzzle itself — numbered cells, the grid shape, and any walls between cells — is the only clue.
Will LinkedIn add more games like Zip?
LinkedIn has been steadily expanding its Games suite since launch, so it is reasonable to expect more daily puzzles over time. Watch the LinkedIn Games hub for new releases.
Two wins a day
Win at Zip. Then win at LinkedIn.
Play today's puzzle, log it in your streak, then spend the next twenty minutes on the part of LinkedIn that compounds — relationships, outreach, and pipeline.