Rubik's Solver

Rubik's Cube Solver (3x3x3) — 3D

Paint the 3D Rubik's Cube below to match your real 3x3x3: drag to rotate the view, pick a colour and click the stickers, then hit Solve!. The two-phase algorithm finds a short solution — typically around 20 moves. Unlike the smaller puzzles, this one is NOT guaranteed shortest: with 43 quintillion positions, no exhaustive check is practical in this app. The returned moves are replayed and validated against our piece model.

Entry instructions · Try a worked example · Position rejected?

Unsure which way R′ or B turns? Practise notation and compare sequences in the move lab.

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A guide for your physical puzzle

How to solve your Rubik's 3x3

When this tool helps

Use the 3×3 solver to recover a scrambled cube, check a colour entry that seems impossible, or follow an unfamiliar move sequence one turn at a time. It calculates a route for your exact starting position. You do not need to solve a white cross or a first layer before entering the cube.

Check which puzzle you have

The standard 3×3×3 cube has nine stickers on each face: a centre, four edges and four corners. This solver does not accept a 4×4, a picture cube with centre-orientation requirements, or a cuboid.

Before you press Solve

  1. Paint the six centres first. They define your colour scheme, so a nonstandard colour layout is fine as long as you copy the physical centres consistently.
  2. Keep one front and one upper face as references. Enter all 54 stickers, checking each two-colour edge and three-colour corner as a complete piece. Every colour must occur nine times.
  3. Before solving, inspect the back and lower faces again. Rotate the model to see them from outside; do not mentally mirror a face as if looking through the cube.

Read the moves

U, D, R, L, F and B mean Up, Down, Right, Left, Front and Back. A plain letter is clockwise as viewed directly from outside that face. An apostrophe reverses the turn; 2 is a 180° turn. B is therefore judged from the back, not from your view of the front.

    Follow the answer on your physical puzzle

    1. Once all 54 stickers match, press Solve and keep your chosen front and upper faces as references. The returned route may temporarily break a face or layer that you had already completed. Follow the whole route rather than mixing it with a beginner method from another starting position.
    2. Read the first face letter, apostrophe or 2, then use Next once. Make that one physical turn and compare the affected rows, including the back or bottom when necessary. Start with single steps; use Play only once you can comfortably keep up.
    3. After the final move, inspect all six faces against their centres. If any side is mixed, stop and identify the first differing checkpoint. If you cannot reconstruct that point, enter the cube’s current colours and calculate a fresh route; the old answer belongs to the old position.

    Turn the result into practice

    To turn a one-off solve into practice, start solved and try R U R′ U′ using the worked example below. Predict the undo order and compare each checkpoint. The move lab linked above lets you test other sequences. These exercises teach notation and move effects; learning to solve an arbitrary cube unaided requires a general method beyond replaying one calculated answer.

    Practise with a reproducible setup and illustrated undo sequence below.

    Worked example · checked 22 September 2026

    Why reversing turn directions is not enough

    Start with a solved 3×3, keeping the front and upper faces fixed. Perform R U R' U'. Although both R and its inverse appear, they do not cancel: the intervening upper turn moved different pieces into the right layer. The same is true of U and U'.

    For this exercise, begin with a solved physical puzzle. Make the setup moves below before following the undo sequence. The example replaces the model’s colours; it cannot change the puzzle in your hands.

    Match the diagram’s reference colours

    Up: white; Down: yellow; Front: green; Back: blue; Right: red; Left: orange. Your toy may use a different scheme. Match the face positions and move directions rather than re-sticking the toy to match these colours. Each face is shown from outside; the diagrams are face maps, not cut-out assembly instructions.

    Set up: R U R' U'

    1. R: Turn the Right face a quarter turn CLOCKWISE, looking straight at that face.
    2. U: Turn the Up face a quarter turn CLOCKWISE, looking straight at that face.
    3. R': Turn the Right face a quarter turn COUNTER-CLOCKWISE, looking straight at that face.
    4. U': Turn the Up face a quarter turn COUNTER-CLOCKWISE, looking straight at that face.

    To undo a sequence, read it backwards and invert every move. The result here is U R U' R'. This is a worked example of an inverse sequence, not a general beginner method for any scramble. Applying these four moves to an unrelated position will not necessarily solve it.

    Undo: U R U' R'

    1. U: Turn the Up face a quarter turn CLOCKWISE, looking straight at that face.
    2. R: Turn the Right face a quarter turn CLOCKWISE, looking straight at that face.
    3. U': Turn the Up face a quarter turn COUNTER-CLOCKWISE, looking straight at that face.
    4. R': Turn the Right face a quarter turn COUNTER-CLOCKWISE, looking straight at that face.
    Starting position after the setup Up: green G Up: white W Up: white W Up: orange O Up: white W Up: green G Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Down: red R Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Right: red R Right: white W Right: white W Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: blue B Right: red R Right: red R Left: orange O Left: blue B Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Front: yellow Y Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: white W Front: green G Front: green G Back: red R Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: red R Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B UpDownRightLeftFrontBack
    0. Starting position after the setup
    After U Up: orange O Up: green G Up: white W Up: white W Up: green G Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Down: red R Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Right: blue B Right: red R Right: white W Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: blue B Right: red R Right: red R Left: yellow Y Left: green G Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: green G Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Front: white W Front: red R Front: green G Front: green G Front: red R Front: green G Front: white W Front: green G Front: green G Back: orange O Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: orange O Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B UpDownRightLeftFrontBack
    1. After U
    After R Up: green G Up: green G Up: white W Up: white W Up: green G Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Down: blue B Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: blue B Down: yellow Y Down: blue B Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Right: white W Right: blue B Right: red R Right: red R Right: blue B Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Left: yellow Y Left: green G Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: green G Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Front: red R Front: red R Front: yellow Y Front: green G Front: red R Front: green G Front: yellow Y Front: green G Front: green G Back: orange O Back: orange O Back: blue B Back: white W Back: orange O Back: blue B Back: white W Back: blue B Back: blue B UpDownRightLeftFrontBack
    2. After R
    After U' Up: green G Up: white W Up: white W Up: green G Up: white W Up: green G Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Down: blue B Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: blue B Down: yellow Y Down: blue B Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Front: yellow Y Front: green G Front: yellow Y Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: yellow Y Front: green G Front: green G Back: blue B Back: white W Back: blue B Back: white W Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: white W Back: blue B Back: blue B UpDownRightLeftFrontBack
    3. After U'
    After R' Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Up: white W Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Down: yellow Y Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Right: red R Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Left: orange O Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Front: green G Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B Back: blue B UpDownRightLeftFrontBack
    4. After R'

    Sticker letters: W white · Y yellow · G green · B blue · R red · O orange.

    After U, you have undone the setup’s last move. R undoes the earlier R'; U' undoes U; finally R' restores the solved cube. The six centre colours stay fixed throughout and define which face is which.

    This undo sequence is guaranteed to reverse this setup. It is not a general recipe for every scramble or a promise of the shortest route. The automatic solver may find a different valid answer.

    Then press Solve and compare its answer with the worked route. The diagrams and written steps above remain available without JavaScript or WebGL.

    When something does not match

    One edge is flipped or one corner is twisted.

    That cannot be corrected by legal face turns alone. First check the painting, including the second sticker on the edge or the other two on the corner. A piece twisted by hand or reassembled incorrectly can make a real cube unsolvable in its current assembly.

    Two pieces appear to be swapped.

    An isolated swap of two edges, or of two corners, violates the cube’s permutation constraints. Recheck the whole colouring before concluding the physical puzzle was reassembled incorrectly.

    Why is the solution longer than twenty moves?

    Twenty is a mathematical bound on the shortest solution in the face-turn metric. This site uses a fast two-phase search, not an optimal search over every possible sequence. Its answer is short and validated, but it need not attain that bound.

    For help with colour entry, grip and playback, read the solving guide. See three illustrated positions with correct counts that still cannot be solved. If the result still looks wrong, send a reproducible bug report.

    What this solver guarantees

    The two-phase algorithm first reaches a restricted set of positions, then solves within that set. We validate its returned moves by replaying them through our own piece model. Unlike the four smaller puzzles, the 3×3 state space is not exhaustively enumerated by our tests, and no shortest-solution guarantee is made.

    Mathematical reference: Herbert Kociemba’s explanation of the two-phase algorithm. The instructions above describe this site’s controls and conventions.

    Read about our verification methods or choose another puzzle.