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3D 2x2 Cube Puzzle Simulator

Play with the online 2x2 simulator on your computer or on your phone.

Drag a sticker and that half of the cube turns with your finger, dropping into place when you are a third of the way round.

The buttons scramble the cube or switch to full screen.

➤ Online Solver
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Error messages appear here when a cube is not colored properly.
3D preview: drag to rotate
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⟲ ◀ ▶ » 0.6 s/move Back to scramble
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2x2 Cube Solver

Calculate the shortest solution for any scrambled 2x2, at most 11 turns.

Paint the colors of your cube onto the net, press Solve and follow the moves.

Use the palette, the turn buttons or a typed algorithm.

➤ Tutorial

How to Solve the 2x2 Cube?

The beginner method in four short steps, with pictures and only a few short move sequences to remember.

A black 2x2 pocket cube on a corner, green face up, white and red faces showing

The 2x2 may look like a toy next to the big cube, but it hides more than 3.6 million positions. The good news: corners are all it has, so four short steps take you from any scramble back to a solved cube.

face rotation lettersWe write moves with the same letters as the 3x3 world: F (front), R (right), U (up), L (left), D (down) and B (back). A plain letter turns that face clockwise, an apostrophe (') turns it counterclockwise, and a 2 means a half turn.

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Two corners can look the same at a glance. Always check all three stickers of a corner before you move it.
1

White Face

Hold the cube with the white stickers up. The goal: all four white stickers on top, with the side colors of neighboring corners matching each other.

The first corner is free, start with any white corner. For each next one, turn the bottom layer until the corner sits directly under its place. Then repeat this sequence until it clicks in with white facing up:

R' D' R D

One pass of the four moves carries the corner up and twists it. Depending which way it was facing, it clicks in after one, three or five passes. That is normal.

A white corner stuck on top in a wrong spot? Hold it at the front-right, do the four moves once, and it drops to the bottom layer where you can handle it.

More Help Next Step
2

Place the Yellow Corners

Turn the whole cube over. White is now on the bottom and stays there. The four yellow corners are on top, but probably in the wrong spots.

Each top corner belongs above the bottom corner it shares two colors with. Turn the top layer and look for a corner that already sits in its place. Hold that one at the front-right and cycle the other three with:

U R U' L' U R' U' L

stays FRONT

The three corners chase each other in the direction of the arrows. Do the sequence once, check the corners, and run it again if they need one more push.

No corner in its place at all? Run the sequence once from any side and one of them will be. A corner counts as placed even when its yellow sticker points sideways, the twist comes in the last step.

Next Step
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Swap Two Corners

The cycle in step 2 moves three corners at a time, so it can never finish the job when exactly two corners are left trading places. That happens on about a quarter of all scrambles, and no amount of cycling escapes it. When you see two swapped corners, use the matching swap below, then carry on. Hold the cube with white down, exactly as in the pictures:

Swap two corners next to each other, on the front top edge:

L F

L F' L' D' L' D F

Swap two opposite corners, the LBU and FRU corners:

L F

F L F L' D' L' D

Either way, don't worry when the corners come out twisted. Straightening them is exactly what the next step does.

Ruwix Guide Next Step
4

Twist the Yellow Corners

Every corner sits in its place now. We twist them straight one by one, with the same four moves as in step 1:

R' D' R D

1. Hold the cube with a twisted corner at the front-right-top.
2. Repeat R' D' R D until its yellow sticker points up.
3. Turn only the top layer to bring the next twisted corner to the front-right.
4. Repeat until every yellow sticker points up.
5. Turn the top layer to line up the side colors. Solved!

Important!
⚠️ The cube will look ruined halfway through. It is not. The white layer comes back on its own when the last corner is done, as long as you only turned the top layer between corners.
⚠️ Always finish the whole R' D' R D sequence, even when the yellow sticker already points up after three moves. The last D turn still matters.

Examples Next
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What Next?

Ready for a bigger challenge? The 3x3 uses the same white-face trick and the same last-layer corner steps. You already know the hardest parts, the edges are the only new thing.

The full 3x3 tutorial, with its own simulator and solver, is on our home page.

3x3 Tutorial First Step
➤ Stopwatch
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2x2 Cube Timer

Practice speedcubing on the small cube!

Hold your Space button or the clock until it turns green, then release to start. Press again to stop.

With scramble generator and instant statistics.

➤ Back to top

Online 2x2 Cube Puzzle Simulator, Solver, Timer and Tutorial

Free online 3D 2x2 cube puzzle simulator, optimal solver, speedcube timer and a four-step tutorial for beginners.
The 2x2 is also sold as the Pocket Cube or Mini Cube, and it works like the big one, just without the edges.

The 2x2 is the best cube to learn first. 🎲 It has 8 corner pieces and 3,674,160 possible positions, and every one of them can be solved in 11 turns or fewer. Learn it and you have already learned half of the 3x3, because the corners of both cubes move exactly the same way.

Spin the cube in the simulator

The simulator at the top of the page is a full 3D cube. Drag a sticker and its half of the cube follows your finger, snapping square once you pass a third of a turn. Drag the background to spin the whole cube around. The Scramble button mixes it up, and the full screen button gives you a bigger view. Nothing you do here can break anything, so twist away.

Stuck? The solver shows the shortest way out

Copy the colors of your scrambled cube onto the net in the solver, then press Solve. The program checks every possible position and picks the shortest path back, never more than 11 turns. Step through the moves one by one and your cube ends up solved. If a sticker combination is impossible, the solver tells you which corner looks wrong.

Race the clock

⏱️ Hold down the space bar, let go, and the timer starts. Press again to stop. On a phone, tap the clock instead. You get a fresh scramble for every solve. The timer keeps your best time, your average, and your averages of 5 and 12, which are the numbers speedcubers use at competitions. Your times stay saved in your browser.

Learn the whole solution in four steps

🎓 The tutorial below teaches the beginner method: solve the white face, move the yellow corners to their places, then twist them straight. The few short move sequences you need all come back later on the 3x3 and on bigger puzzles like the 4x4. Most people can learn this in a weekend. When the cube feels easy, a puzzle that changes shape, the Square-1, makes a fun next challenge.

Why start with the 2x2 and not the 3x3?

Here is how the two cubes compare:

2x23x3
Moving pieces820
Possible positions3,674,160about 43 quintillion
Worst case solution11 turns20 turns
Record solve timeunder half a secondjust over 3 seconds

OnlineCube.com also has the full 3x3 version with its own simulator, solver, timer and tutorial. When the small cube starts to feel easy, that page is the next step.