Lifehacker posted a NYTimes Connections guide for Friday, July 10, 2026, and Tim Mulkerin opened with a warning: “Beware, there are spoilers below for July 10, NYT Connections #1,125!” The post gives players spoiler-free hints first, then the revealed category sets for the day’s puzzle.
For readers finishing that grid, the clearest payoff is simple: yellow was SMARTPHONE SETTINGS, with AIRPLANE MODE, DO NOT DISTURB, HOTSPOT, and LOCATION SERVICES. Green was DESSERT MENU DESCRIPTORS, with DECADENT, FRESH-BAKED, MOLTEN, and À LA MODE.
NYT Connections #1,125 clues
The puzzle number matters because NYT Connections is a daily sequence, so #1,125 places this board in the game’s long run rather than as a one-off challenge. That numbering helps regular players keep track of the exact day they missed or solved, which is the point of a help post built around a specific date.
Mulkerin’s hints also show how Connections rewards category logic over surface meaning. AIRPLANE MODE and DO NOT DISTURB are straightforward settings, but LOCATION SERVICES and HOTSPOT only fit if you read them as phone controls rather than isolated nouns.
OUTKAST and MOLTEN
The trickier part of the write-up is the warning about misleading words. OUTKAST can look like it belongs with a music clue, and the post says NEW ORDER is the name of an English band, but OUTKAST does not go in today’s musician category. MOLTEN is another trap, because it belongs in a phrase like MOLTEN lava cake, which sends it toward dessert language instead of literal texture.
That same logic explains why all the “mode” tiles split apart today. The game is not asking readers to chase the first obvious association; it asks them to test whether a word fits the exact category rule, the common phrase, or the fuller expression.
Tim Mulkerin since 2016
Mulkerin, who has been working in digital media and the tech world since 2016, wrote the post as a puzzle aid rather than a spoiler dump. He also has a bachelor's degree in art history, is pursuing a master's degree in communicative sciences and disorders from New York University, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
That background fits the format well: the post starts with hints, then gives the category names and answer sets for the two revealed groups, leaving readers to use the same rule-based approach on the remaining tiles. For anyone checking Friday’s board, the immediate task is to map the leftover words by phrase logic, not by the most familiar meaning on the tile.
