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3D 5x5 Cube Puzzle Simulator

Play with the online 5x5 simulator on your computer or on your phone.

Drag a sticker and its layer follows your finger - outer, inner or middle, depending how close to the center you grabbed. Let go past a third of a turn and it snaps home.

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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⟲ ◀ ▶ » 2.0 s/move Back to scramble
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5x5 Cube Solver

Get a complete solution for any scrambled 5x5 with the reduction method: centers, then edge groups, then a 3x3 finish.

Paint the colors of your cube onto the net, press Solve and follow the moves. The very middle of each face is fixed and sets the color scheme, so hold your cube with the white center up and the green center facing you.

Use the palette, the turn buttons or a typed algorithm. Lowercase or w means a wide turn of two layers.

➤ Stopwatch
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5x5 Cube Timer

Practice speedcubing on the 5x5 Professor's Cube!

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

With 60-move scramble generator and instant statistics.

➤ Tutorial

How to Solve the 5x5 Cube?

Four steps, and the first two do the real work: build the six 3x3 centers, then join each edge's three pieces into one. After that the Professor's Cube is just a classic cube in a thicker shell, and the only surprise left is a single flipped edge. Every diagram below is drawn from the position it describes.

A black 5x5 Professor's Cube on a corner, red face up, white and green faces showing

The 5x5, sold as the Professor's Cube, has around 2.83×1074 positions - write it out and you get 75 digits. Ignore the number, because nobody solves a 5x5 as a 5x5. You shrink it first, and that shrinking is called reduction: nine loose center pieces per face become one big center, and each edge's three pieces become one big edge. Build those and the cube in your hands turns exactly like a 3x3 - every algorithm you already know still works.

This walks the same route as the excellent Ruwix 5x5 guide, so if a step here reads awkwardly, try it there in someone else's words.

This page assumes the classic cube is already behind you; if it is not, our 3x3 tutorial is where to start. Coming straight from the 3x3, consider the 4x4 tutorial first - it is this same method with fewer pieces, and reduction is easier to see when there is less of it.

Rw

How to Read the Moves

The 5x5 uses the 3x3 letters - F front, R right, U up, L left, D down, B back - plus one new idea: a move can also grab an inner layer.

R
outer layer only

Rw
two layers together

Rw R'
inner slice only

A plain letter turns clockwise, an apostrophe (') counterclockwise, a 2 means a half turn. A w after the letter (Rw) takes the face and the inner slice next to it. When a sequence needs the inner slice alone, we write it as the pair Rw R' - and you can type it into our solver the same way. The middle layer never needs a letter of its own: the method below leaves it alone, though you can drag it in the simulator.

💡

The Centers Are Fixed

Here is the best news on this page: on the 5x5 the six middle pieces never move - no turn can relocate them, only spin them in place. On the 4x4 you must memorize the color scheme; on the 5x5 the cube itself shows it: white opposite yellow, green opposite blue, red opposite orange. Hold white up with green toward you, and red is on the right.

from the front

the same cube from behind

Whatever you build must agree with those middles: every center block grows around its fixed piece, so a face simply cannot end up in the wrong place. When in doubt, trust the middle sticker.

1

Solve the Centers

Each face needs a 3x3 block of one color in the middle: the fixed piece plus eight movable centers. Those eight come in two kinds - four + centers on the sides and four x centers on the corners of the block - and the two kinds never trade places, so you always know which slot a piece can fill.

the four + centers

the four x centers

Build white first, then yellow on the opposite face, then the four side colors. Start each face with its middle column - two + centers above and below the fixed piece. After that the working unit is the 1x3 bar: collect three centers of the same color, stand the bar in the right-hand column of the front face, and lift it onto the top face:

a bar standing ready…

➔

…lifted to the far column

Rw U2 Rw'

The lift drops the bar on the far column of the top face and puts the wide layer straight back. The last bar rises into the remaining column with a plain Rw. The first two centers are free - nothing else is built yet, turn anything you like. From the third face on, protect your work: turn a wide layer out of the way, drop the bar in, turn that same layer straight back. A finished center only leaves its face for a moment.

all six centers done

checked from behind

No need to double-check the scheme before moving on: the fixed middles made sure every block grew in the right place.

Ruwix Guide Next Step
2

Pair the Edges

Every edge of the 5x5 is three pieces: a midge in the middle and two wings. The goal of this step: join them into 12 solid triples - speedcubers call them tredges - that travel together.

The main trick. Keep the edge you are building at the front-right. Turn the outer layers (they never break centers) until a missing wing sits at the front-left edge at the same height as its empty slot - with the sticker that belongs on the right face facing you, like the red one here:

the missing wing waits on the left…

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…the finished edge parks on top

Uw' U R U R' Uw U'

The inner slice carries the wing across to the front-right, R U R' parks the finished edge in the top layer and drops another edge in its place, and the closing slice restores the centers. A wing waiting at the bottom height goes home the same way with the bottom slice: Dw D' R U R' Dw' D.

The last two edges. When only two unfinished edges remain there is no spare edge left to drop in, and sooner or later the matching color looks straight at you - the head-on case. Hold the two edges at the front-left and front-right and run the flip sequence:

the last two edges, tangled…

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…one sequence untangles both

Uw' U R U R' F R' F' R Uw U'

Both tricks may stir up the top-layer corners and edges - that is fine, they are step 4's problem. And if the very last edge refuses with just two flipped wings, that is not your mistake: it is the parity of step 3.

Ruwix Guide Next Step
3

Edge Parity - Two Flipped Wings

About half of all solves end the pairing with a cruel joke: the last edge comes together with its two wings flipped - the midge is fine, but the wings show their colors the wrong way round. No amount of clever pairing fixes it; it is a real parity, and the only one the 5x5 has.

Hold the flipped edge at the front of the top face and run:

Rw2 R2 B2 U2 Lw L' U2 Rw' R U2 Rw R' U2 F2 Rw R' F2 Lw' L B2 Rw2 R2

It looks long because this page spells out every inner slice as a pair - each Rw R' is one inner-slice turn. Older guides write the same algorithm as r2 B2 U2 l U2 r' U2 r U2 F2 r F2 l' B2 r2, using a convention where a lowercase letter means the inner slice on its own. Do not type that shorter form into the box above: here, as in official WCA notation, a lowercase letter is the wide turn, so it would run a different algorithm and scramble your centers. It swaps the stickers of the two front-top wings and touches nothing else.

And here is your reward for surviving it: this is the only parity on the whole 5x5. Unlike the 4x4, the 3x3 stage ahead can never throw an OLL or PLL parity at you - once the twelve edges are solid, the finish is pure 3x3.

Ruwix Guide Next Step
4

Solve It Like a 3x3

Squint at the cube: each center block is one big center, each edge triple is one big edge. The reduction is complete - and from now on you turn only the outer faces. Never a lone inner slice, or you tear the triples apart again.

Solve it with the beginner method you already know, in the usual order:

1. White cross - the four white edge triples around the white center.
2. White corners - finish the first layer.
3. Second layer edges.
4. Yellow cross, then the yellow corners.

Every 3x3 sequence works move for move. The full walkthrough, with its own diagrams, is in our 3x3 tutorial.

And no trap waits at the end this time: the wing parity of step 3 was the 5x5's only surprise, so the last layer always behaves exactly like a real 3x3.

3x3 Tutorial Next
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What Next?

Reduction does not get harder than this. A 6x6 or a 7x7 asks for the same three ideas in the same order - centers, edges, 3x3 - with more pieces to herd and nothing new to learn. Going back down to the 4x4 Revenge should feel easy now, with one warning: where the 5x5 has a single flipped edge, the smaller cube has two parity cases waiting at the very end.

Put it under pressure with the timer, or hand a scramble you cannot crack to the solver and see where the line went wrong. For piece counts, alternative notation and where the Professor's Cube came from, the Ruwix 5x5 article referenced throughout goes deeper.

3x3 Tutorial First Step
➤ Back to top

Online 5x5 Cube Puzzle Simulator, Solver, Timer and Tutorial

Free online 3D 5x5 cube puzzle simulator, reduction-method solver, speedcube timer and a four-step tutorial for beginners.
The 5x5 is known as the Professor's Cube, and it works like the classic cube, with fixed centers, split edges and a single parity case.

The 5x5 is the biggest cube on OnlineCube.com, though the twelve-sided Megaminx holds even more. 🎲 It has 92 moving pieces around 6 fixed centers and about 2.83×1074 possible positions - a number with 75 digits. None of which matters, because you never face all of it at once: two preparation steps collapse the whole thing into a 3x3, and that is a puzzle you have already beaten.

Spin the cube in the simulator

The simulator at the top of the page is a real cube, not a picture of one. Take hold of any sticker and pull: the layer under your finger comes with you, and once you are a third of the way round it clicks home by itself. Which layer you get depends on where you grabbed, so the 5x5's inner and middle slices are yours as well - just start nearer the middle. Drag beside the cube to orbit it, Scramble to mix it, full screen for the whole window. There is nothing here you can break.

Stuck? The solver shows a way out

Paint the colors of your real cube onto the net in the solver and press Solve. It works the way you are about to: centers, then edge triples, then the 3x3 finish, dropping in the wing parity fix if the cube asks for one. Expect 260-345 moves - a 5x5 is simply long - and step through them at whatever pace suits you. Paint something no real cube could show and it names the piece that is wrong instead of just refusing.

Race the clock

⏱️ Hold the space bar until the clock turns green, release, and the timer runs; press again to stop it. On a phone the clock itself is the button. Every solve arrives with its own 60-move scramble, and the running figures are the ones competitions quote - your best, your mean, and your averages of 5 and 12. It all stays in your browser, so a reload does not cost you the session.

Learn the whole solution in four steps

🎓 The tutorial below is reduction in four steps: six centers, twelve edges joined into triples, the wing parity if it turns up, then an ordinary 3x3 solve. If the 4x4 is already familiar this is an afternoon's work; straight from the classic cube, give it a weekend.

What makes the 5x5 different from the 3x3?

Here is how the big cubes compare:

5x54x43x3
Moving pieces925620
Possible positionsabout 2.83×1074about 7.4×1045about 43 quintillion
Parity cases12none
Record single29.49 s
Tymon Kolasiński, 2026		15.18 s
Tymon Kolasiński, 2025		2.76 s
Teodor Zajder, 2026

World records as recorded by the WCA, checked August 2026. They move often - the live list lives at worldcubeassociation.org.

OnlineCube.com also has the full 3x3 version, the 4x4 Revenge and the little 2x2 version, each with its own simulator, solver, timer and tutorial. If the Professor's Cube feels like too much, the 4x4 is the natural halfway stop.