Support

Hangmates is hangman with friends: two to six players take turns guessing one word, and every guess shows in its player's color. You can also play on your own.

Getting help

Email help@hangmates.com. In the app, Settings → Help → Send feedback opens that email for you. Tell us your phone and, if it happened in a room, the room code.

Playing with friends

Start a game opens a room and shows its four-letter code. Tap the code to share an invite link; anyone with the app who opens it lands in your room. Friends can also type the code on the home screen and tap Join.

A new room is Private: only your friends and people with the code can join. Set Room to Open to all and it also appears under Open rooms on everyone's home screen until the game starts.

The host picks the theme, rounds, category, difficulty, turn timer and whether people can join late under Edit, can remove a player from the lobby, and starts the game once someone else has joined. The next room you start opens with the same settings.

Friends

Adding a friend. Tap the friends icon beside the gear on the home screen, then Share my friend link and send it any way you like. When they open it and tap Add friend, you're friends. You can also tap a player in a room's lobby, or + Friend on the results after a game, to send a request they can accept. There's no searching by name.

Seeing who's on. The Friends section on the home screen shows who's online and what they're doing: in a room (with Join if there's a seat), in a game, playing solo, or when they were last on. A green dot means they're free; yellow means they're busy in a game or playing solo.

Want to play? Tap it next to a friend and a private room opens with you as host. Your friend gets a notification and, in the app, "you're invited" with a Join button — no code to text. If they can't be told right away, your lobby says they'll see it next time they open Hangmates. An invite lasts 15 minutes.

Your record together. Tap a friend to see your matches against each other (won–lost–tied), your last games together, and their Daily Hang streak. The Daily Hang leaderboard has a Friends tab too.

Staying private. Turn off Settings → Friends → Show me as online and your friends see you as offline, with no last-seen time. To stop being friends, tap them, then ••• → Remove friend. Block does the same and also keeps them out of rooms you start; they aren't told.

Notifications

Hangmates can tell you when a friend wants a game, when someone sends you a friend request or accepts yours, when someone joins a room you're hosting, when your game starts, and once a match if you're missing turns. They're only sent while you're away from the app, never for every turn.

Turn them on or off in Settings → Sound and notifications. Two more are separate switches: Daily Hang reminder (once on a day you haven't played, and it stops if you skip a few days) and Friend comes online in Settings → Friends (off unless you turn it on; it tells you when a friend has been on for 10 minutes, at most once every 3 hours per friend).

Not getting any? Check that notifications are allowed for Hangmates in your phone's own settings, then switch Notifications off and on again in the app.

Custom categories

Tap Category, then Make your own — as host from Edit in the lobby, or on your own from the Play on your own sheet — and describe the category in a sentence or two. Who it is for helps: "90s movies a ten-year-old would have seen, nothing R-rated". We name it and write the answers in about half a minute. You never see the answers, so you can play too.

A category you have made or played is kept for you under Your categories, and topped up with new answers as you play, so it does not run out. On your own it works offline too, with the answers you already have.

Categories are saved and shared. If someone has already made the one you describe, it is ready in a couple of seconds. If we can't tell what you mean, we'll say so rather than guess.

Credits. Custom categories use credits; the built-in categories are always free. One credit gives you 3 games of a custom category, with any number of words, on your own or in a room. In a room the host pays and everyone else plays free. Making a new category uses the first of its 3 games. Your credits and games left are in Profile → Credits and Pro.

Daily limits. Each player can make up to 10 new categories and 20 category requests a day, and there is a daily limit across all players. If you reach one, the app says which; it resets the next day, and the built-in categories always work.

Common questions

"This room has closed." Everyone left or the game finished. Ask for a new invite, or start a game of your own.

Can I play without a connection? Yes — Play on your own works offline. The app keeps a set of answers on your phone ahead of time.

Do I need an account? No. You can play without signing in, and there are no passwords. Your player name is set in Settings, and the app remembers it on this phone.

I got a new phone, or I play on an iPad too. On your first phone, go to Settings and tap Save your progress, then sign in with Apple or Google. On the new phone or the iPad, do the same with the same account: you play as the same player there, with your name, streaks and stats. If you never saved your progress, a new phone starts fresh.

Can I see a hint? In solo, yes: tap Play on your own, turn Hints on, and each word shows a clue.

How do I pick the category in solo? Tap the category name in the top-left corner of the game (the one with the ▾) and choose one, or pick Surprise Me for a random mix. It starts with the next word. The Daily Hang shows its category there too, but it's the same for everyone, so it can't be changed.

An answer is wrong, misspelled or unfair. Email it to us with the category. We retire bad answers so they never come back.

Free and Pro

Hangmates is free to play — rooms with friends, solo, the Daily Hang, every built-in category and every leaderboard — with occasional ads between games. Free players have the Classic and Balloon themes, up to 3 friends, and solo hints after a short video.

Hangmates Pro is a one-time purchase of $3.99, not a subscription. It removes ads, unlocks every theme (including ones added later), gives solo hints with no video, lifts the friends limit, puts a Pro badge by your name, and comes with 3 credits.

Credits come in packs of 5 for $1.99 or 15 for $4.99, and never expire. Pro does not add credits each month; you buy more when you want them. Every new player gets 1 credit to try custom categories.

Beta players: thank you. Everyone who played during the beta starts with 10 credits, in place of whatever they had in the beta. Pro taken free during the beta has ended.

Prices are in US dollars; the App Store and Google Play show the price where you are.

Your data

What the app keeps and why is on the privacy page. To have your player's data removed, email us with the name you play under.