How to solve a Rubik’s cube
Seven steps, one layer at a time. It is the method almost everybody starts with, and you can be solving a cube unaided by the end of an afternoon.
Every algorithm below runs on a cube you can turn, step it move by move, and try yourself on the keyboard. And each step says what it leaves alone — because the thing that actually defeats people is not forgetting an algorithm, it is doing one and wrecking the part they had already finished.
Before you start
Hold the cube with white on the bottom and keep it there. Every instruction on this page assumes you did.
The centres never move. Whatever colour is in the middle of a side is what that side will be when the cube is solved — which is why the centres, not the corners, tell you where everything belongs.
R means turn the right side clockwise. R’ (said “R prime”) means anticlockwise, and R2 means twice. Same for U (up), F (front), L, D and B — always as if you were looking straight at that side.
- 1
The white cross
Four white edges around the white centre, each matching the colour of the side it sits on.
Pick white and keep it on the bottom for the whole solve. Every instruction after this assumes you did.
Find a white edge, bring it to the top layer, turn the top until it sits above the centre matching its other colour, then turn that face twice to drop it into place.
The second colour is the part people skip. An edge that is white-side-down but sitting over the wrong centre is not solved — it is in the way, and you will pay for it in the next step.
There is no algorithm here on purpose. The cross is where you learn to look at the cube instead of following instructions, and it is the one part of the solve every good cuber does entirely by eye.
- 2
The rest of the bottom layer
The whole white face done, and the first row of every side matching its centre.
Find a corner with white on it that is still in the top layer, and turn the top until it is directly above the gap it belongs in.
Then repeat the trigger below until it drops in the right way up. It takes one, three, or five goes depending on how the corner is facing.
If a white corner is stuck in the bottom layer facing the wrong way, do the trigger once to pop it out, then treat it like any other.
The trigger
0 / 4Repeat until the corner goes in the right way up. Four of these and you are back where you started, so you cannot break anything permanently.
This one deliberately makes no promise about the rest of the bottom layer, because it does briefly take a corner out of it — that is how the corner gets in. What it never touches is your cross.
- 3
The middle layer
Two full layers. Only the top face is left.
Look for a top-layer edge with no yellow on it. It belongs between two centres in the middle.
Turn the top until its front colour matches the centre it is in front of — it will look like an upside-down T.
Then send it right or left, depending on which way it needs to go.
Send it right
0 / 8The edge needs to go into the slot on your right.
Send it left
0 / 8The edge needs to go into the slot on your left.
This will not touch the layer you have already built. Checked against the puzzle, not promised.
If every middle edge is already in place but one is flipped, use either algorithm on it to kick it out, then put it back properly.
- 4
The yellow cross
A yellow cross on top. The corners can still be anything.
Look only at the yellow edges. You will see a dot, an L, a line, or the cross already made.
Do the algorithm with a line lying left-to-right, or with an L in the top-left corner.
A dot needs it three times, an L twice, a line once. It is the same algorithm every time.
Make the cross
0 / 6Every time. Only the way you hold the cube changes.
This will not touch the two layers you have already built. Checked against the puzzle, not promised.
- 5
The whole yellow face
The top face entirely yellow. The sides will still be a mess.
Hold the cube so a yellow corner that is NOT yet facing up sits at your front-left.
Do the algorithm. It will look like you have destroyed the cube. You have not — keep going.
Turn only the top layer to bring the next unsolved corner to front-left, and repeat. Never turn anything else between goes.
Turn a corner up
0 / 7Repeat with a different corner at front-left until the whole face is yellow.
This will not touch the two layers you have already built. Checked against the puzzle, not promised.
This is the step where people panic and start over. Trust it: as long as you only turn the top face between repetitions, the two layers underneath come back.
- 6
Put the corners where they belong
Every corner in the right place, even if the sides are not yet matching.
Find a corner already between the two centres whose colours it has. It might not be turned the right way — that is fine, it just has to be in the right corner.
Hold that one at your front-right and do the algorithm. It cycles the other three.
If no corner is in the right place, do it once from anywhere and one will be.
Cycle three corners
0 / 8Repeat until all four corners are in the right places.
This will not touch the two layers you have already built. Checked against the puzzle, not promised.
This one moves no edges at all, so your yellow cross cannot be disturbed by it.
- 7
Put the last edges where they belong
A solved cube.
If one side is already fully finished, hold it at the back. If none is, do the algorithm once from anywhere and one will be.
Then do the algorithm until it is solved.
Cycle three edges
0 / 11With the finished side at the back.
This will not touch the two layers you have already built. Checked against the puzzle, not promised.
This one moves no corners at all — the corners you just placed are safe.
Once you can do it
You are solving a cube. The next thing is not more algorithms — it is doing these ones without stopping to think, which is what turns three minutes into ninety seconds.
After that, the method above is replaced one piece at a time. The two middle-layer algorithms become F2L, done by looking rather than by recognising a case. The last two steps become the 57 OLL and 21 PLL cases, which finish the cube in two algorithms instead of four sets of repetitions.
Turning a cube with the keyboard
If you have not got a cube in front of you, every algorithm here can be done on the virtual one. These are the keys, and they are the same ones Twizzle and cstimer use — so what you learn here works elsewhere.
Faces
The six outer layers. These are most of every solve.
Wide turns
Two layers at once — how most F2L pairs are actually inserted.
Slice
The middle layer. Central to roux and to most cross-colour swaps.
Rotations
Reorient the whole cube. Free before the clock starts, like inspection.