How to solve a Rubik’s cube
The beginner’s method, one layer at a time. No experience needed — but do keep a cube in your hands while you read.
What a cube is actually made of
A 3×3 has 20 moving pieces, not 26. Take one apart and you find three kinds:
- 8 corners — three stickers each
- 12 edges — two stickers each
- 6 centres — one sticker, bolted to the core
The centres never change places. That is why they, and not the pieces around them, decide what colour each face is. You never move a centre to fit a piece — you move pieces to fit the centre.
White is always opposite yellow, green opposite blue, red opposite orange. No sequence of turns can change that.
Reading the moves
Each letter is one face, turned a quarter clockwise as you look straight at that face.
| U | Up |
| D | Down |
| R | Right |
| L | Left |
| F | Front |
| B | Back |
| R′ | anticlockwise — any letter takes a prime |
| R2 | half turn; direction does not matter |
Hold the cube the same way all through a sequence. Do not turn the whole cube in the middle of one — that is the commonest beginner mistake.
Every algorithm below has a ▶ beside it. Press it and the solver page plays that sequence on the 3D cube, so you can watch before you try.
Step 1 — the white cross
Hold white on top. Get the four white edges around the white centre, with each one’s second colour matching the centre of the side it touches.
No algorithm here. Find a white edge, bring it to the bottom under where it belongs, then turn that face twice to lift it up.
A cross where the side colours do not match the centres is not finished. Check all four before moving on.
Step 2 — the white corners
Find a white corner in the bottom layer. Turn the bottom until it sits directly below the gap it belongs in, then repeat this until it drops in the right way round:
Repeat the same four moves — up to six times — until that one corner is right. Never change your grip in between.
Step 3 — the middle layer
Turn the cube over so white is now at the bottom. Look at the top layer for an edge with no yellow on it. Line its front colour up with the matching centre, then send it left or right:
If every top edge has yellow but a middle slot is still wrong, run either algorithm once on that slot to kick the wrong piece out, then do it properly.
Step 4 — the yellow cross
Only the top face matters now; ignore the side colours. You will see a dot, an L, or a line. Run this once for each:
Dot → L → line → cross. Hold the L so it points up-left, and the line so it lies across.
Step 5 — the whole yellow face
Now turn the yellow corners the right way up. Hold the cube so a corner that still needs turning is at the front-right-top, and repeat:
The cube will look badly scrambled in the middle of this step. That is normal. Keep the same grip, turn only the top face between corners, and it comes back together.
Step 6 — the last layer in place
Two jobs left: put the corners in the right places, then the edges.
For the corners, find one that is already correct, hold it at the back-right, and repeat until the rest fall in.
Then the edges. Hold the finished side at the back and run this until the cube is done.
That is the whole method. Slow and correct beats fast and lost — if you lose your place, scan the cube into the solver and let it show you a way out.