Skewb Solver
Any way up, any side toward you
Hold the Skewb any way you like, and keep holding it that way while you enter the colors and follow the solution.
How the Skewb solver works
Enter the colors of your Skewb side by side, and the solver finds the shortest way back to solved and plays it move by move in 3D.
Hold it any way
There is no right way up. The corner you hold at the top-front-right defines the colors: its top, right and front stickers are the colors those sides will have when the Skewb is solved, and that corner never moves during the solution.
Enter the colors by hand
Tap a color and the next sticker is selected for you. Start with the top-front-right corner; after that, most corners fill in by themselves once two of their stickers are in, and the last center fills in too.
Checked before it solves
Before solving, the solver checks every color count, every center and every corner, and that the pieces are in an order a real Skewb can reach. If something is wrong, it marks the stickers to check.
The shortest solution, step by step
Every Skewb position can be solved in 11 moves or fewer. The solver gives you one of the shortest solutions in WCA notation (R, U, L and B turn around the bottom-back-right, top-back-left, bottom-front-left and bottom-back-left corners) and plays each turn on the 3D Skewb.
Skewb solver guide
How to solve a Skewb with the online solver
A Skewb is a cube cut along its diagonals, with 8 corners, 6 centers and just 30 stickers, and the solver fills in many of them for you. These notes explain how the online Skewb solver reads your puzzle, what its notation means and why it sometimes says a Skewb can't be solved.
Why you can hold it any way
Every Skewb turn moves half of the puzzle, centers included, so no piece shows on its own which side is which. The solver keeps one corner still instead: the corner you hold at the top-front-right never moves during the solution, and its three colors become the top, right and front colors of the solved Skewb.
The other three colors follow from that corner, because each color's opposite is the one color that never shares a corner with it. So any corner can be your starting corner. Just keep holding the Skewb the same way until the last move.
How to read Skewb notation
The solver uses WCA Skewb notation. Each letter names the corner a move turns around: R is the bottom-back-right corner, U the top-back-left, L the bottom-front-left and B the bottom-back-left. The move turns the half of the puzzle around that corner by a third of a turn, clockwise as you look straight at the corner. A letter with an apostrophe (R') turns it counterclockwise.
The top-front-right corner sits in the half that stays still for all four moves, so it never moves. Skewb algorithms written in WCA notation use the same letters, so you can compare the solver's moves with any algorithm you already know.
Why the solver says a Skewb is impossible
Usually one sticker was entered wrong: a color then appears six times, two centers share a color, or a corner shows two colors that belong on opposite sides. Compare the stickers the solver marks with the puzzle in your hand.
If every sticker matches, the Skewb was probably taken apart and put back the wrong way. Turning can never twist a single corner in place, swap just two corners or swap just two centers, so a Skewb like that has to be fixed by hand before it can be solved.
Before you solve
- Choose a corner to hold at the top-front-right.
- Enter that corner's three colors first.
- Enter the other stickers; most corners and the last center fill in by themselves.
- Check that every color appears exactly five times.
- Hold the Skewb the same way while you follow the moves.
Frequently asked questions
How many moves does a Skewb solution take?
Never more than 11. A Skewb has 3,149,280 positions, and every one of them can be solved in 11 moves or fewer; most need 8 or 9, and only 90 need all 11. The solver knows the distance of every position, so it always gives one of the shortest solutions.
How do I solve a Skewb with this solver?
Hold the Skewb any way, enter the colors of its six sides and tap Solve. The solver checks the colors, then shows the shortest solution in WCA notation and plays each move on a 3D Skewb, so you can follow it move by move on the puzzle in your hand.
Can I scan my Skewb with the camera?
Not yet. The Skewb solver takes the colors by hand, and since many stickers fill in by themselves that usually takes about a minute. Camera scanning works on the 3x3 solver.
What should I do if the solver says my Skewb can't be solved?
Check the marked stickers first: usually one was entered as the wrong color. If every sticker matches, a corner was probably put back twisted, or two pieces were swapped, after the puzzle came apart. Fix it by hand and enter the colors again.
Does the solver work for any Skewb?
It works for any standard Skewb with white, yellow, green, blue, red and orange sides, held any way up, including speed and magnetic models. It doesn't solve the Skewb Ultimate, the Skewb Diamond, the Master Skewb or other variants.