LinkedIn Zip Tips: How to Solve the Path Puzzle Fast
Published September 14, 2026
How Zip actually works
Zip gives you a grid with numbered cells scattered across it, starting at 1. Your job is to draw a single path that visits every number in order, moves only up, down, left, or right (never diagonally), and fills every single cell in the grid exactly once — there's no skipping a cell and looping back to it later. Some boards add walls between specific cells that block movement even if the cells are adjacent. Grids start around 6×6 and grow larger on harder days, and LinkedIn tends to ramp up the difficulty as the week goes on, so a Monday zip and a Friday zip can feel like different games entirely.
Don't split the board into a dead zone
The single most common way to get stuck in Zip is drawing a path that seals off a pocket of empty cells you still need to fill later. Before you commit to a move, glance at the cells on the far side of it — if that move would close off a group of cells with only one remaining entrance, and you don't currently need to enter that pocket, you're setting up a dead end for later. Every cell in the grid has to be visited eventually, so a path that isolates a region too early usually means backtracking.
Corners and dead ends are your best clues
Corner cells and cells with only one or two open neighbors are the most constrained parts of the board, so check them first. If a numbered cell sits in a corner with only one legal way in or out, that direction is fixed the moment you plan your route — there's no ambiguity to resolve later, so lock it in early and build the rest of the path around it. The same logic applies to any cell boxed in by walls on three sides: it only has one possible neighbor, so the path must pass through that connection.
Plan backward from the last number
It's tempting to only think forward from 1, but the final numbered cell matters just as much as the first. Look at what's near the highest number on the board and ask how the path could possibly arrive there while still leaving every other cell filled. Working from both ends toward the middle — forward from 1 and backward from the last number — narrows your options faster than only reasoning in one direction, especially on larger grids where a purely forward approach leaves too many branches open.
Let walls guide you, not just block you
Walls aren't only obstacles — they're information. A wall segment tells you a connection that would otherwise seem obvious is actually forbidden, which often means the path has to take a longer route around it. When you see a wall next to a numbered cell, trace what paths are still open from that cell and you'll frequently find only one or two realistic options left. Treat every wall as a hint about the intended shape of the route rather than just a rule to remember.
A simple parity idea
Here's a trick that helps on trickier boards: think of the grid like a checkerboard, alternating colors between adjacent cells. Every single move in Zip goes from one color to the other, since orthogonal moves always land on a differently colored cell. That means a path visiting every cell in a grid with an equal number of each color will naturally alternate colors the whole way through. If you're stuck deciding between two routes and one of them would require landing on the same color twice in a row, you can usually rule it out without tracing the whole path — it's not a strict proof on every board, but it's a fast sanity check when you're comparing two candidate routes.
Read the whole board before drawing anything
It's tempting to start connecting 1 to 2 the instant you see the board, but a quick full scan first usually saves time overall. Note where every numbered cell sits relative to the walls, and look for any stretch of the grid that only has one realistic way through it, regardless of which numbers border it. Committing to those forced stretches mentally, even before you've drawn a single line, means your actual path-drawing goes faster and with far fewer erased attempts, since you're filling in a route you've already mapped rather than discovering problems as you draw.
Recheck after every numbered cell
Treat each numbered cell you reach as a checkpoint rather than just a milestone. After connecting number 4 to number 5, pause and look at what's left uncovered on the board relative to what's left in the numbered sequence — if a section of empty cells has become isolated from the rest of the path you still need to draw, that's the moment to catch it, not several moves later when undoing the mistake means retracing a much longer stretch of the route. This habit turns a single misstep into a two-second correction instead of a full restart.
Keep practicing
Zip rewards planning over guessing — a few seconds spent checking corners and pockets before you draw a line saves a lot of backtracking. Try today's board with our Zip solver, or play it directly on the daily Zip page. See the rest of the day's puzzles on today's LinkedIn games answers.