This guide teaches you how to solve a Rubik’s Cube with the beginner’s method, also called the layer-by-layer method. You solve the cube one layer at a time: first the white layer, then the middle layer, then the yellow layer. It takes seven steps and six short algorithms, and every step has a 3D demonstration you can replay as often as you need. No memory tricks and no talent required: if you can follow a recipe, you can solve the cube.
Before you start
Know the pieces. A 3x3 cube has three kinds of pieces. The six centers never move relative to each other, so the center color tells you the color of that face: the face with the white center will be the white face when the cube is solved. The twelve edges have two stickers and sit between two centers. The eight corners have three stickers. You never solve “stickers”; you put pieces in the right place, the right way round.
Learn the letters. Algorithms are written in cube notation. Each letter is a face: R (right), L (left), U (up), D (down), F (front) and B (back). A plain letter means a quarter turn clockwise, as if you were looking straight at that face. A letter with an apostrophe (R′) means counter-clockwise, and a 2 (U2) means a half turn. The demonstrations show every move, so you can check your turn against the 3D cube.
Hold the cube the same way. From step 2 on, keep the white face on the bottom and the yellow face on top, which is how the solver’s Beginner mode and the demonstrations hold it. The color that faces you changes as you work on different pieces, but white stays down. Most mistakes come from turning the whole cube in the middle of an algorithm, so finish an algorithm before you change your grip.
Give it an hour. A first solve with a guide usually takes 30 to 60 minutes. After a few solves you will stop reading and start recognizing cases, and a two-minute solve comes within a week of casual practice.
Step 1: Make the white cross
The first goal is a white cross on the bottom: the four white edges around the white center, each with its second color matching the center next to it. A cross where the side colors do not match is not finished, even if it looks like a plus sign from below.
The easiest way to get there is the daisy:
- Hold the cube with yellow on top. Find a white edge and bring it to the top layer so its white sticker faces up, next to the yellow center. Turn the top layer out of the way before you bring up the next one, so you never knock a white edge back down.
- Repeat until all four white edges surround the yellow center. It looks like a flower with a yellow middle and white petals.
- Now look at the side sticker of one petal. Turn the top layer until that sticker is above the center of the same color, then turn that face twice (F2 if it is in front). The edge drops to the bottom with white facing down.
- Do the same for the other three petals.
The demonstration starts from a daisy and finishes the cross: each petal is lined up with its center by a top-layer turn, then sent down with a half turn. It does not matter which petal you start with.
When a white edge is in the middle layer, a single turn of a side face lifts it to the top. When it is in the bottom layer the wrong way round, turn that face once to bring it up, then continue. This step is intuitive; after a few solves you will build the cross directly on the bottom without the daisy.
Step 2: Insert the white corners
Now turn the cube over so the white cross is on the bottom. You will fill the four gaps between the cross edges with the white corners, finishing the whole first layer.
Every corner goes in with one short sequence, R U R′ U′, repeated:
- Find a white corner in the top layer. Read its two other colors, for example white, red and blue.
- Turn the top layer until that corner sits directly above the place where it belongs: between the red and blue centers, right above the empty bottom corner.
- Turn the whole cube so that spot is at the front right. Now repeat R U R′ U′ until the corner drops into place with white facing down. Depending on which way the white sticker points, that takes one, three or five repetitions.
If a white corner is in the bottom layer but in the wrong spot or twisted, hold it at the front right bottom and do R U R′ U′ once. That lifts it into the top layer, and you can insert it as usual.
Do not panic when the top layer gets scrambled while you repeat the sequence: R U R′ U′ only disturbs the top layer and the corner you are working on. The cross stays where it is. When all four corners are in, the bottom is completely white and each side shows a small “T” of matching color: the side’s center and the three stickers of the bottom row.
Step 3: Solve the middle layer
The middle layer has four edges and no white or yellow on them. Your job is to take each one from the top layer and slot it in between its two centers without breaking the white layer.
- Find an edge in the top layer with no yellow sticker.
- Turn the top layer until the edge’s front sticker matches the center below it, making an upside-down “T” on the front face.
- Look at its top sticker. If it matches the right center, the edge needs to go down to the right; if it matches the left center, it goes down to the left.
To send the front edge down to the right:
U R U′ R′ U′ F′ U F
To send it down to the left, use the mirror image:
U′ L′ U L U F U′ F′
Both algorithms take the edge out of the top layer, pair it with the corner below, and put the pair back in together. The demonstration shows the right-hand version.
Sometimes every edge left in the top layer has yellow on it, but the middle layer is not done. That means an edge is stuck in the middle layer, in the wrong slot or flipped. Hold that edge at the front right and do the right-hand algorithm with any top edge: it kicks the stuck edge out to the top, and you can insert it properly.
After this step, the bottom two layers are solved. Most people who give up on the cube stop here, so you are over the hard part.
Step 4: Make the yellow cross
Keep white on the bottom. Look only at the top face now and ignore the sides. The goal of this step is a yellow cross on top: the four top edges with their yellow stickers facing up. The corners may point anywhere.
You will see one of four patterns made by the yellow edge stickers (the yellow center always counts):
- A dot: only the center is yellow.
- An L shape: the center and two edges next to each other.
- A line: the center and two opposite edges.
- A cross: you are done with this step.
All three unfinished cases use one algorithm:
F R U R′ U′ F′
- With the line, hold it horizontally (left to right) and do the algorithm once. You get the cross.
- With the L, hold it so the two yellow edges point to the back and to the left, like the hands of a clock at nine o’clock. Do the algorithm and you get the line; do it again for the cross.
- With the dot, do the algorithm once from any side. You will get the L, and you continue from there.
The demonstration starts from the horizontal line. Notice that the algorithm never touches the first two layers: when it finishes, only the top layer has changed.
Step 5: Match the yellow edges
The yellow cross is on top, but the side stickers of the cross edges probably do not match the centers below them. In this step you move the top edges so each one matches its side center.
Turn the top layer and watch how many edges match their centers. You can always get at least two to match at the same time. Two cases follow:
- Two matching edges next to each other (for example the back and the right). Hold the cube so the matching edges are at the back and on the right, then do the algorithm below. It swaps the front and left edges.
- Two matching edges opposite each other (front and back, or left and right). Do the algorithm once from any side; you will get the adjacent case and can finish from there.
R U R′ U R U2 R′ U
The algorithm swaps the front and left top edges and keeps the other two in place. The final U lines everything up again, so after it the four edges should all match their centers. If they do not, turn the top layer until two adjacent edges match and repeat.
This is the same short algorithm speedcubers call the Sune, followed by one turn of the top. You will see it again in faster methods.
Step 6: Put the yellow corners in place
Now look at the four top corners. A corner is in the right place when its three colors match the three centers around it, even if it is twisted. For example, the yellow, red and green corner belongs between the yellow, red and green centers. Ignore which way the yellow sticker points for now.
- Check each top corner and find one that is in its right place.
- Hold the cube so that corner is at the front right of the top layer.
- Do the algorithm below. It cycles the other three corners and leaves the front right one where it is.
U R U′ L′ U R′ U′ L
After the algorithm, check again. If all four corners are in place, go on to step 7. If not, do the algorithm again from the same position; two applications at most will do it.
If no corner is in the right place, do the algorithm once from any side. Afterwards exactly one corner will be in place, and you continue as described.
Do not worry that the corners look twisted. The next step fixes their orientation without moving them.
Step 7: Twist the yellow corners
This is the last step and the one that scares people, because the cube looks broken halfway through. It is not. Trust the algorithm and do not turn the whole cube until the step is finished.
- Hold the cube with white on the bottom. Turn the top layer or the whole cube so a corner whose yellow sticker is not facing up sits at the front right of the top layer.
- Repeat R′ D′ R D until the yellow sticker of that corner faces up. That takes two or four repetitions. The bottom layers get scrambled while you do this; that is expected.
- Without turning the whole cube, turn only the top layer (U) to bring the next unsolved corner to the front right. Repeat R′ D′ R D until its yellow sticker faces up.
- Continue until all four top corners show yellow. Then turn the top layer until it matches, and the whole cube is solved.
R′ D′ R D
The reason this works: R′ D′ R D repeated six times does nothing at all. Each corner you fix uses two or four of those repetitions, and in total the top layer always needs a multiple of six, so the bottom layers come back exactly when the last corner is fixed. The demonstration twists two corners: the first one needs two repetitions, the second one four.
The most common mistake is turning the whole cube to reach the next corner. Only the top layer may turn between corners, otherwise the bottom layers cannot come back.
What to learn next
You can now solve a Rubik’s Cube. Do a few more solves with the guide nearby, then try without it; the seven steps come back quickly because each one has a clear goal. Time yourself with the cube timer and watch your average drop.
When you get stuck on a real cube, paint it into the solver and choose Beginner mode: it splits the solution for your exact cube into the same seven steps. If you want something smaller first, the 2x2 guide uses step 2 of this method as its first step. Once the 3x3 is easy, the 4x4 guide shows how to reduce a bigger cube to the 3x3 you already know.
Faster methods such as CFOP build the cross and the first two layers together and solve the last layer in two algorithms, but they need many more algorithms. Everything you learned here still applies: the cross, pairing a corner with an edge in the middle layer, and the Sune all appear in CFOP.