How to play Minesweeper

The whole game in one sentence: open every square that is not a mine. The numbers tell you where the mines are.

The board

Minesweeper starts with a grid of covered squares. A number of mines are hidden under some of them, and the counter above the board tells you how many. Your job is to uncover every square that does not hide a mine.

There are three classic sizes, the same ones that came with Windows:

Beginner: 9 squares by 9, with 10 mines. A game takes a minute or two.
Intermediate: 16 by 16, with 40 mines. The size most people remember.
Expert: 30 by 16, with 99 mines. One square in every five is a mine.

What the numbers mean

When you open a square that is not a mine, it shows a number: how many mines touch it. "Touch" means the eight squares around it, including the corners. A 1 has exactly one mine somewhere among its neighbours; a 3 has three.

A square with no mines around it shows no number at all, and the game opens all of its neighbours for you, which is why a single click can clear a whole area.

Each 1 touches only one covered square, the one in the corner, so that square must be the mine.

That is the heart of the game. Look for a number that touches exactly as many covered squares as its value: every one of those squares is a mine.

Opening and flagging squares

Open a square with a click or a tap. Your first click is always safe and always opens an area to start from.
Flag a square you are sure hides a mine: right-click, or press and hold on a touch screen. A flag stops you opening that square by accident, and the counter above the board goes down by one.
Win by opening every square that is not a mine. You do not have to flag the mines to win, though most people find flags help them keep track.
Lose by opening a mine. In Zen, you can simply undo that move and carry on.

Opening around a number

Once a number has as many flags around it as its value, all of its other neighbours must be safe. Instead of opening them one by one, click the number itself (or tap it on a touch screen) to open them all at once. Players call this a "chord", from the old trick of pressing both mouse buttons together.

The second 1 already touches a flag, so its other two covered squares are safe. Click that 1 to open them both.

Be sure of your flags before you do this: if a flag is in the wrong place, opening around the number will open a mine.

Your first game, step by step

Start on Beginner. Click any square: it opens an area with numbers along its edge.
Find a 1 that touches only one covered square. That square is a mine: flag it.
Look at the numbers next to your flag. Any number that now has all its mines flagged has only safe squares left around it: open them.
Each square you open brings new numbers. Go round the edge of the open area again, repeating the same two checks.
When nothing is obvious, press Hint. It lights up one safe square and the numbers that prove it, with a sentence that explains why.

Almost every game is won with just those two checks, plus a few patterns that are worth learning by sight.

Is Minesweeper a game of luck?

Mostly not. On a board where the mines are scattered completely at random, a game can end with two squares that look exactly alike, one hiding a mine and one not, and nothing on the board to tell them apart. Then you have no choice but to guess.

That never happens here. Every board is played through by the computer before you see it, and only boards that can be cleared by logic alone are dealt. More about no-guess boards. If you would rather play the old way, turn on Allow guessing in Settings.

The controls

With a mouse

Left-click opens a square. Your first click is always safe and opens an area.
Right-click places or removes a flag.
When a number already has all its flags around it, click it (or click with the middle button, or both buttons together) to open the rest of its neighbours at once.

On a tablet or phone

Tap opens a square. Press and hold to place a flag.
The Reveal and Flag switch under the board changes what a tap does, if you prefer flagging with a tap.
Tap a number whose flags are all placed to open around it.
On big boards, pinch to zoom and drag to move around, or use the zoom buttons.

With a keyboard

Arrow keys move between squares, Space opens, F flags, and C or Enter opens around a number. H asks for a hint. Press ? on the board for the full list.

Hints

Hint lights up one square that is certainly safe (or certainly a mine) and the numbers that prove it, with one plain sentence explaining why. Each hint adds 10 seconds to your time, and your statistics count how many you used.

Where Minesweeper came from

Minesweeper as most people know it was written at Microsoft by Robert Donner and Curt Johnson. It first appeared in the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows in 1990 and came with Windows itself from Windows 3.1 in 1992, which put it on almost every office computer of the decade. It shipped with Windows up to Windows 7; since Windows 8 it has been a separate download.

The idea is older than Windows: earlier computer games had already asked players to cross a minefield using numbers that counted the mines nearby. Microsoft's version, with its three board sizes, is the one this site follows.