Paint the colors of your scrambled 3x3 puzzle cube on the unfolded net, press Solve and follow the solution one turn at a time on an animated 3D cube. Solutions are usually 18 to 22 moves.
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1 Paint your cube
Hold the cube with the white center on top and the green center facing you. Pick a color, then click stickers.
Or type a scramble (e.g. R U R' U' F2)
2 Solve and follow the moves
Notation: R = turn the right face clockwise (as you look at it), R' = counter-clockwise, R2 = half turn. U up, D down, F front, B back, L left. Keys: 1-6 pick a color, ←/→ step through the solution, Space play/pause.
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How to use the 3x3 Cube Solver
Hold your cube with the white center on top and the green center facing you. Keep it that way the whole time.
Paint each face: pick a color from the palette (or press 1-6) and click the stickers on the net. Top is U, front is F, right is R, back is B, left is L and bottom is D.
Check the counters: every color must show 9/9 before solving.
Press Solve cube. If the colors describe an impossible cube, the problem stickers are highlighted so you can fix them.
Follow the moves with Next or Play. The 3D cube shows each turn, and the text explains which face to turn and in which direction.
Cube notation used in the solution
Each letter is one face of the cube. A plain letter means a quarter turn clockwise as you look at that face, an apostrophe means counter-clockwise and a 2 means a half turn (direction does not matter).
Move
Face
What it does (white on top, green in front)
U / U' / U2
Up (white)
U moves the front row of stickers to the left
D / D' / D2
Down (yellow)
D moves the front bottom row to the right
R / R' / R2
Right (red)
R moves the front right column up
L / L' / L2
Left (orange)
L moves the front left column down
F / F' / F2
Front (green)
F turns the face you are looking at clockwise
B / B' / B2
Back (blue)
B moves the top back row to the left side, as seen from behind
How the two-phase algorithm finds a short solution
A 3x3 cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 reachable positions, far too many to search directly. Kociemba's two-phase method splits the job in two. In phase 1 it searches for moves that orient all corners and edges and put the four middle-layer edges into the middle layer. In phase 2 it finishes the cube using only U, D and half turns of the side faces (R2, L2, F2, B2), which never undo the phase 1 work. Precomputed pruning tables tell the search the minimum number of moves still needed, so it can skip hopeless branches. The tables are built in your browser in under a second, in a background thread.
Because the solver keeps trying longer phase 1 sequences with shorter phase 2 finishes, it quickly finds solutions of about 20 moves. Every scrambled position can be solved in at most 20 face turns, a number often called God's number.
Tips for entering colors correctly
Read each face the way the net shows it. The top face is drawn as seen from above with the back edge at the top of the square. The bottom face is drawn as seen from below with the front edge at the top.
Use the counters. If a color shows 10/9, a sticker of that color was painted where another color belongs.
Try a scramble first. Shuffle random or type a scramble to see how the moves and the 3D animation map to your physical cube.
Do not rotate the whole cube while following the moves. Only turn the face named by each letter.
Frequently asked questions
How does this cube solver work?
It converts your sticker colors into the positions and orientations of the 8 corner and 12 edge pieces, then runs Herbert Kociemba's two-phase algorithm. Phase 1 brings the cube into a subgroup where all pieces are correctly oriented, and phase 2 solves it using only moves that keep that property. The search keeps improving for about a second and returns the shortest solution it found.
How many moves will the solution have?
Usually 18 to 22 moves in face-turn metric, where a half turn such as R2 counts as one move. Every position of the 3x3 cube can be solved in 20 moves or fewer (proved in 2010), so these solutions are close to optimal.
Why does it say my cube is impossible?
A real cube must have 9 stickers of each color, every corner and edge must have a valid color combination, and the twist, flip and parity rules must hold. If one corner is twisted, one edge is flipped or two pieces are swapped, the state cannot be reached by turning, which usually means a sticker was entered wrongly or the cube was taken apart and rebuilt incorrectly.
Which way is clockwise?
Clockwise is judged as if you are looking straight at the face being turned. For example, R turns the right face clockwise from the right side, which moves the front stickers of that face upward. L moves the front stickers down, U moves the front stickers to the left.
My cube has different colors. Can I still use it?
The solver uses the standard color scheme: white opposite yellow, green opposite blue and red opposite orange, with red on the right when white is up and green faces you. If your cube uses another scheme, map each of your colors to the face position it sits on (use the color of each center) and paint accordingly.
Do I need to keep the cube in the same orientation?
Yes. Hold the cube with the white center on top and green center facing you while entering colors and while doing the moves. If you turn the whole cube in your hands, the letters no longer point to the same faces.
Is anything sent to a server?
No. The colors, the validation and the solving algorithm all run in your browser with JavaScript. Your last painted cube is kept in local storage on this device so you can continue later.
Are all the tools on FreeToolCabin tested for quality and accuracy?
Yes! Every tool on our site undergoes automated Q/A testing in real browser environments to ensure high precision, correct output, and zero errors. If you happen to spot a bug or have a suggestion, please contact us at [email protected] and our team will review it right away.