How to Resign, Delete, or Otherwise End a Game Early in ‘Words with Friends’

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Perhaps one of the most frustrating thing about the Zynga game ‘Words with Friends’ is trying to figure out how to resign from (or quit or remove or delete or otherwise end a game – even if you are willing to forfeit the game – of Words with Friends) when it is not your turn. One reason you might want to do this is because the friend with whom you are playing has become unresponsive, particularly if you are maxed out on the number of games you are playing, and so can’t start any new games until some of the other games go away. In such a case, it can be maddeningly frustrating trying to end a game of Words with Friends, when it is not your turn, and your friend has gone missing or nonresponsive for days on end, and so isn’t taking their turns so that you can play the game through to its natural conclusion.

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(The maximum number of active games that you can have open at any one time in Words with Friends is 20, by the way. We use the term “active” advisedly, as of course we are talking in part about games where the other person is not active.)

Here’s the first thing to know: You can’t resign from (i.e. quit, remove, delete, or otherwise end) an idled, inactive game of Words with Friends, if it’s not your turn, until the game has sat idle for approximately 11 days.

(Note: We have it on good authority that if the game is with a random person that has been assigned to you by Words with Friends, rather than, say, a Facebook friend or other contact, then you only have to wait 5 days.)

Here’s the second thing to know: Sometime between day 11 and day 12, the system will automatically resign the other person for you, and you will get a message that they resigned, and that you win (a cold victory, to be sure).

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To demonstrate:

Here is a game that has been idle for 11 days:

words-with-friends-11-days

 

It is impossible for the active person (you) to resign from a game before its time – here’s what happens when you try. To resign from a game, you need to click on the “more” button in the lower right-hand corner of the game screen:

 

how-to-find-resign-words-with-friends-more

 

This will cause a second row of option buttons to appear, but, as you can see, the resign option is greyed-out – this is because it is not your turn, it is the idle person’s turn (this is, however, how you would resign from a game if it were your turn):

 

words-with-friends-resign-greyed-out

 

By the way, the green dial-looking button on the upper-right is a word strength rater, and the button just to its left is the “spend money in the Words with Friends store” button.

In any event, as you can see, there is no way for you to resign from an idle game when it is the other person’s turn, so the bottom line is this:

The way to resign from an idle game of Words with Friends is to…wait. Until there has been no activity for 11 to 12 days. At which point you will be alerted when the game has been forfeited.

Or, you could just call your friend and tell them to get on the stick, and take their move or resign.

(There is a “Remind” feature that pops up when you click on an idled game, however what this does is log into Facebook and annoy them through Facebook, so we don’t recommend it.)

 

words-with-friends-resign-you-won

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83 thoughts on “How to Resign, Delete, or Otherwise End a Game Early in ‘Words with Friends’

  1. I have a game with dwhalon527 that says something went wrong. When I look at the game, the word mines is in there 2 times. One is in the wrong place. Can you take the wrong one out?? I don’t care if I lose the count.

  2. I accidentally created 5 games with someone and only wanted 1. How can I delete 4 of them without resigning and taking losses?

  3. I was playing with a random person, she was losing and told me” I won’t ever lose”. Vanished like the game never happened.

    1. That just happened to me!! I was playing a guy named Joe. Just Joe. No other info. I was beating him by almost 200 pts and when we got down to only 5 letters left he vanished!!!

      1. Did you get a reply on how they vanished? I was just up on a guy and at last play I got a message saying he declined…not that I won. Then he vanished which I assumed he blocked me. But how did he decline game in the middle of it?

    2. This happened to me twice today… I was winning the game and the game suddenly vanished and the persons started a new game with me… how did they vanish the game?

        1. These are players resigning though. This is a ways into the games and you are leading at with a good number of points and instead of resigning, they are somehow declining in the middle of the game and it doesn’t show a win for you. This has happened to me literally dozens if times in the past 2 months.

  4. I have had 4 or 5 different men start games with me in the past week. They seem to want to chat & know more about me. I was ahead in all of these games. When I would not chat, they disappeared without resigning. How & why is this happening?

      1. BTW, I have many instances where women come on and do the same thing. I am older and they either want game cards or money, The ball swings both ways.

      2. I have also had several randomly chosen men do the same to me. As soon they start to chat and I tell them that I don’t want to chat, I never hear from them again and the game is left hanging for ages. Nudging them doesn’t help. It’s very annoying. I’m here to play the game, not to reveal everything about me. I’m sure they just play a round or 2 of the game to met women…or men…depending …and it’s really annoying . Then I can’t start a new game until the old game is completed. This should be fixed on the game. When I play a bot instead, it’s 24 hours for him to make the first move and then 60mins between for the bot
        to make a move. Love the game…hate these rules that make the game tedious. Thinking of resigning.

    1. Unless your comment is rhetorical, I think the answer you’re looking for is fairly obvious and is spelled out in your description. They’re using the game like a dating app to try to meet women, not actually play the game. When you don’t respond, they move on. Creepy to be sure. I recommend to any women playing the game who are only interested in the game and not in such activity to choose a vague/nondescript screen name and refrain from posting photos of themselves as an avatar.

      1. Yes Charles thank u, but what we want to know is how do they remove the game without resigning, quitting, just gone with no trace?

        1. I also would like to know how they do that! Twice in last week this has happened when I’ve not responded to chats and been winning.

    2. Same here! I have narrowed down these guy players by their names. If they have names that could be either 2 first names or 2 last names I.e. Connor Michael DONT accept. All they want to do is chat ant tell you to contact them thru Watsup!!! Then they disappear like you were never in a game with them!!

      1. Yep! It just happened to me. He wanted me on WhatsApp, then on Hangout, then my phone number. I refused all 3 and said if he wanted to chat we could chat here, on the game. Next thing I knew the app froze! I had to turn my phone off, reboot the game, and he was gone. Fletcher was his name from Bulgaria living in the US forever!
        How did he do it?

      2. BTW, I have many instances where women come on and do the same thing. I am older and they either want game cards or money, The ball swings both ways.

      3. If a guy starts a game, I immediately click on the chat cloud and settings button and MUTE conversation. They can either play or quit. But how do they decline in mid game and doesn’t count as a win for me like when they resign?

        1. Thank you, I’ve been so frustrated with these men I get matched up with, (using WWF as a dating site). I just want to play WWF

      1. Same here. Maybe they are blocking us???
        One guy play “areolae” as his first word and he came off rather creepy as he kept trying to force me to talk.

    3. Linda,
      These men are scammers, they get on play a few rounds usually allowing you to be a head, then chat with you. The chat is usually about them being single because their wife died, and they are either engineers, geologist etc! And are out of town on work but live in Florida… THEN, they ask if there is another site you can talk on because they are usually not on word war a lot! They usually suggest HANGOUT. they are SCAMMERS, stay away! #Goodluck

      1. I’ve had several conversations with these scammers and it makes me laugh that they all have the same story, just change the details. I wonder if this story is working for them. At this point, I don’t engage in conversation with any of them and eventually they usually resign or “decline”. I’ve never seen the option to decline, so I’m not sure how they do that.

  5. I have accidentally added 10 games to the same person. I only wanted 2 what can I do? How do I delete all except 2 of them?

  6. How do I restore a game after I accidently resigned. For some reason wherever the resin button is located is in a place that I have accidently resigned from multiple games…games that I was winning by a lot and I am so frustrated. I’m not sure if it got bumped in my pocket or what but it should have a way to restore. Please help

  7. I had a few games with random players that were over a month old that wouldnt auto resign. When I tried to nudge the player, it said they were no longer available. Today, I found out how to clear the games.
    I went into the chat screen for each player and saw that there was an option to block them. When I chose the option, it said that all active games would be ended. Problem solved.

    1. I stand corrected. Gina’s idea did work for most of my outstanding games. Thank you, Gina.

  8. I have 12 games over 200 days old where the other person does not respond. How do I delete them. If I resign it counts as a loss for me…I refuse to do that!

  9. Julie all you have to do to get rid of the request is decline don’t accept when it shows you have a new challenger.
    I have way more than 20 games going so not sure how that happened. It’s more than okay with me.
    I am maxed out though and want to remove an unresponsive person from my games without resigning so I can play people who do play consistently.
    I know it can be done somehow because when one of those lovely men that challenge me that really only want to chat finds out I’m married and don’t want to chat have removed their name off my list and nothing shows up saying they resigned. When someone does resign it shows you that they did.

    1. Yes! This happened to me tonight (the guy who vanished once he found out I was married). No sign we ever had a game going at all. So weird!

      1. Not weird. Those are spam/fraud people. Click on there profile and “poof” all dates and activity is “todays” date. It’s the overseas people waiting for a sucker to respond.

    2. I have 51 games going. I don’t mind at all but that is definitely More than 20! ?
      And thank you Gina, that worked for me! I was tired of having to resign and taking a loss

  10. I have 8 games in the ” my turn ” section.
    when I click on any of them , it says game over and they are over. When I click on the more button, the resign key does not light up, so I can’t resign.
    could sure use some help’

  11. Zynga’s customer service is ridiculous. I wanted to practice some solo games when I first started and I was given a German language screen for no apparent reason and there is nothing I can do to ditch the darn thing.

  12. I had several of these on my game (Android). Today for no reason I tried going into my Applications Manager and cleared the Data and Cache for the app. It made them go away. I found that I was forfeited on at least one, and one game remained active but the other person had been waiting for me for 4 days. Worth a try.

  13. I have three inactive games. Each appears to be my turn (they are large format on the screen next to my active games. 25, 32 and 44 days idle! If I open the game it won’t let me play and my opponents obviously don’t intend to. Design is grayed out! Help!!!

  14. My wife Valerie Woolfe has died 14/02/18.in Dublin .Ireland Please remove her name from Words with Friends

  15. I have 26 games that will not time out.from 102 days to 25 days. They still show up as games playing. I have uninstalled and reinstalled and they r still there. What else can i do?

  16. All options I have found never work as it’s not my turn, I access the game via Facebook Messenger or some unknown reason. My game looks nothing like the photos shown. Holding down an abandoned game does nothing, I don’t get any additional icons, etc. Some if my games are over the 500 hour mark but there has been no Auto resign happening here. Does anyone know how to delete abandoned Words with Friends games accessed thru Facebook Messenger? Zynga has even quit responding.

  17. I’m sick and tired of getting the “nudge so and so” to play since it’s been 168 hours since I played. I want out of this game. Please help me!

  18. I have games from over 200 days I can not make disappear on Words With Friends and now 20 day ones on Words With Friends 2. Not happy!

  19. I have many people that want to play Word with me. I would like a good reason as to WHY you limit the games to 20?? Scrabble doesn’ do thst, therefore I KNOW it can be changed. Just want to know WHY you have such a low limit? When friends AND family are sending requests it looks to them that they are being ignored!!

    1. Umm…Cindy…this is an article about Words with Friends, not the company who is responsible for Words with Friends! We have no way to answer your questions because we are NOT Zynga.

  20. All these questions but no answers!!! Come on Zenga! Help us out here! Fix this game so we don’t quit playing altogether!

  21. I was able to resign from a game, but am not able to delete the game. It just shows up on my turn board. No option to delete or move it.

    1. I just deleted a game and it did not count against me. Open the game board of the person you want to delete. Now open the chat box and tap the settings wheel in the upper right corner. Choose block user and confirm. And they are gone.

  22. Help! I have four games that are 899 days old. I have tried everything to delete them that i have read about. Yes, i meant 899 days.

  23. I HAVE GAMES WITH pLAYER 2 THAT HAVE NOT HAD ANY ACTIVITY. pLEASE GET RID OF THEM OR HOW DO i GET RID OF THEM NO ACTIVITY FIR 70 DAYS

  24. How can you block someone who is playing on fast play? ive tried everything but cant block them like you can on the classic games.

  25. How go I stop someone that keeps adding many new games so I am always playing with the same person? How to decline?

  26. I have a rematch request from someone I have never played. They are not listed anywhere else other than a rematch request. How do I get rid of the request please

  27. I enjoy scrabble but am beginning not to like it because people on the game play more than one time per game (the same name on the same game 2 to 3 times) and that is not the scrabble I know.

  28. It’s not fair that we should have to resign a game because of a bad player. It goes against our stats and it’s the other players fault for not playing I have had problems meeting challenges because of games being held up and I can not play to get a high score. Someone please make a game like this that after 2 or 3 days we can force the other person out for not playing

  29. How do you delete finished solo games. It will only let you play three and you can’t delete the old games. Only way is to uninstall words then reinstall which is ridiculous, there must be an easier way?

  30. I have a game open with a player who has not played in over two weeks. My screen if frozen and I cannot get any response!! I have sent him several messages to no avail. I really would like to be able to play on my phone. Why is there no option for simply ending this game?

  31. I accidently opened games with 3 people that i do not have anything to do with and do not want any contact with them.
    It is very upsetting to know you cant get of rid of the games…..in fact i have no memory of ever playing a game with them even though the game keeps putting them up for me to play a game with..the no butto. Is very small print for people with fat fingers!

  32. I have 35 open games that are 60+ days old… Many triplicates. How do I get them
    Off my WWF game?

    1. I recently resigned from a game I didn’t want to play anymore. Will they still be able to see my picture on the leaderboards?

  33. Would like to know why deleted messages keep coming back over and over again. Deleted them at least 5 times today. Month old messages. Gets a bit irritating This is on an ipad

  34. My opponent and I are tied T 337 points each. Neither of us can use the remaining tiles that we have . We don’t know the tile value of our opponents tiles neither. How do we end this standoff?

    1. I had same experience twice. One was a guy. I made mistake of replying to 1 msg, but after he left 2 more silly messages I resigned–counted as my loss. the other was “Joseph” w/ a guy’s photo but profile female. “He” resigned after 2 turns when I didn’t reply to silly msgs so at least I got a win. I read online somewhere that they do that hoping you’ll resign so they can rack up wins.

  35. here we go again… I have game which when I tap to play…freezes game and closes app. Can’t play, can’t close. Help!
    Thank you!

  36. I have a game open…however I am unable to play since every time I tap on game WWF shuts down completely. How do I remove? I’ve already removed the app…and then installed again. I have shut down my device as well….
    Any suggestions?
    The ‘friends’ name is JohnJohn tm (as in trademark symbol).
    TIA

  37. Esther, no, you can only have a certain number of games going at any one time in Words with Friends, so if you are getting a message that they are maxed out, it means that they already have the maximum number of games going, and they will need to end one before they can start another one.

  38. If you were playing a game with someone and all of the sudden they resigned and when I try to start another game with them I get a message that the player is maxed out, does that mean the player blocked me?

  39. I have games on my iphone that want me to nudge a person after 35 days. On my computer, I have only five active games, but on my phone I have about 12. These games are with the same people, and they are obviously finished. What can I do? Do I really have to nudge people about games that are not active for them?

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