Rubik’s Cube notation
Algorithms are written with letters: each one means a turn of one face. Here are all the moves from the 3x3 algorithms in this app, with a picture and a 3D animation.
How to read the moves
You hold the cube facing you. The letter is the face: R right, L left, U up, D down, F front, B back.
A letter alone is a quarter turn clockwise, looking straight at that face. An apostrophe (R′) is a turn the other way, and 2 (R2) is a half turn.
A lowercase letter (r, f, u…) turns two layers at once: the face and the middle layer next to it. M and S are the middle layers only, and x, y, z rotate the whole cube.
- RRight face up
- R'Right face down
- R2Right face half turn
- LLeft face down
- UUp to the left
- DDown to the right
- FFront clockwise
- BBack: from the front it looks like a counterclockwise turn
- MMiddle column down, like L
- SMiddle layer between the front and the back, like F
- rTwo right layers up (the same as Rw)
- xWhole cube like R: the front goes up
- yWhole cube like U: the front goes left
- zWhole cube like F
Notation of other cubes
Solving for the first time? Beginner method walks you through 8 steps with these moves.