Play Rubik's Cube Online (3x3)

Virtual cube controls: mouse, touch and keyboard

The cube reacts to the direction of a swipe, not its length: a short, clear movement across one sticker makes exactly one quarter turn, and a plain tap never turns anything, so resting a thumb on the cube is safe. If swiping on a small phone feels fiddly, the move buttons turn each outer face either way with a tap. Reset returns to solved and clears the move history. Keys are ignored while you type in a text field or hold Ctrl, Cmd or Alt, so browser shortcuts keep working.

A 3D cube simulator that behaves like the real 3x3

The game is the same as with a cube in your hands: scramble it, then turn the layers until each of the six faces shows one color again. This simulator models the real puzzle piece by piece. Its 26 visible pieces are 8 corners, 12 edges and 6 centers, and the centers never move relative to each other, so white always sits opposite yellow, red opposite orange and green opposite blue. That gives the same 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 positions as a physical 3x3, and every one can be solved in 20 moves or fewer.

Scramble picks one of those positions at random, each as likely as any other. Official competitions scramble the same way, so you never get a lucky, half-solved start. Middle-layer turns work too and are recorded as M, E and S.

The cube is drawn as plain vector graphics rather than with a 3D engine, so it appears with the page and stays sharp when you zoom in.

Timing a solve on the virtual cube

Tick Time my solve before you begin. After you press Scramble, the clock waits for your first turn, so you can study the cube first, a little like the inspection time at competitions. It stops by itself the moment every face shows a single color, and the result reads, for example, “Solved in 84 moves and 1:12.40”. Undo keeps the clock running, so a mistake costs time but never ruins the attempt.

Turning a cube with a mouse or a finger is slower than turning a real one, so compare these times with each other rather than with your hand solves. To time your own cube, with a new scramble for every solve and Ao5 and Ao12 averages, use the Rubik’s cube timer.

Every key is a notation letter

Each letter names a face: U (up), D (down), L (left), R (right), F (front) and B (back). A plain letter turns that face a quarter turn clockwise as you look straight at it, and Shift turns it back, just as an apostrophe does in R′. Reading an algorithm and typing it are therefore the same skill: R U R′ U′ is R, U, Shift+R, Shift+U.

Keys turn one face at a time; there is no box for pasting a whole sequence. Under the cube, Moves counts every turn and the move list shows each one as a notation chip, newest last, so you can check that a key or a swipe did what you meant. The Rubik’s cube notation guide shows every letter in 3D, along with slices and whole-cube rotations.

Stuck? Send the position to the solver

Everyone gets lost halfway through a solve at some point. Solve this state opens the 3x3 Rubik’s cube solver with the exact position of your virtual cube already filled in, so there is nothing to paint. There you get a solution of about 20 moves, or you can switch to the beginner method to see the rest of the solve in seven stages, each with an explanation.

The solver’s Play with this cube button brings the position back here, and its Copy share link keeps it for later. To stop needing the solver at all, follow how to solve a Rubik’s cube step by step: its practice links open each stage’s position right here on the virtual cube.

2x2 to 5x5 and three twisty puzzles, one click away

The 3x3 is one of seven puzzles you can play on this site. For something quicker, the 2x2 Rubik’s cube online has only corners to solve. For more layers, play the 4x4 Rubik’s cube online or the 5x5 Rubik’s cube online, where you build the centers and pair the edges before finishing like a 3x3. Three puzzles change the shape instead: Pyraminx online, a four-sided pyramid; Megaminx online, a twelve-sided 3x3; and Skewb online, which turns around its corners. Not sure which to try next? The guide to the types of Rubik’s cubes compares all seven, from easiest to hardest.