What is the goal of Minesweeper?

Reveal every cell that does not hide a mine. You never have to click the mines — flagging them is optional bookkeeping. The game is won the moment the last safe cell is revealed, and lost the moment you reveal a mine.

What do the numbers in Minesweeper mean?

Each number counts the mines in the cells that touch it — up to eight neighbors, fewer on edges and corners. A 1 touching exactly one hidden cell tells you that cell is a mine; a number whose mines are all found tells you its remaining neighbors are safe.

Can you lose Minesweeper on the first click?

Not in modern versions. Mines are placed after your first click so the click is always safe — in this version the whole 3×3 area around it is kept clear, so the board always opens with a blank region.

What is chording in Minesweeper?

When a revealed number already has exactly that many flags around it, clicking the number reveals all its remaining unflagged neighbors at once. It is the biggest speed technique in the game — but it detonates if one of your flags is wrong.

Do you have to flag every mine?

No. Flags exist to help you read the board and to enable chording. The win condition only checks that every safe cell is revealed, so many fast players flag sparingly and only where a flag enables a chord.

Beginner Guide

How to Play Minesweeper

Updated August 8, 2026 · The AI Minesweeper Guide

Minesweeper looks like a guessing game and plays like a proof. Under a grid of identical hidden cells sits a fixed set of mines; your job is to reveal every cell that isn't one. The only information you get is numbers — and the whole game is learning to hear what they're telling you. Five minutes with the rules below is enough to stop guessing and start deducing. When you're ready, play free in your browser — no download, no sign-up.

The Goal (and the Two Ways It Ends)

You win when every safe cell is revealed. You never have to touch the mines — flagging them is optional.
You lose the instant you reveal a mine. One click, one boom — there are no second chances (that's what makes the logic matter).

Your First Click Is Always Safe

In every modern Minesweeper — including ours — mines are placed after your first click, and the placement keeps that click safe. Our version clears the whole 3×3 area around it, so the game always opens with a satisfying burst of revealed territory. Click anywhere you like; the middle of the board gives the reveal the most room to spread.

Reading the Numbers

Each number counts the mines among the cells that touch it: the eight surrounding cells for a cell in the open, five along an edge, three in a corner. Cells with zero neighboring mines show no number at all — they auto-open their neighbors, which is why blank areas flood outward.

This 1 touches exactly one hidden cell — so that cell is certainly a mine. Flag it.

Two readings cover most of the game:

A number's hidden neighbors equal its value → every one of them is a mine. (A 1 with one hidden neighbor, a 2 with two, and so on.)
A number already touches that many flags → all its other neighbors are safe. Open them without fear.

Everything more advanced — the famous 1-2-1 and its cousins — comes from combining two or three numbers at once. That's the subject of our patterns guide.

Flags: Right-Click, Long-Press, or Flag Mode

Flag a cell you believe is a mine with a right-click on desktop or a long-press on touch screens. Our version also has a 🚩 Flag toggle that turns every tap into a flag — handy on phones. Flags subtract from the mine counter at the top, and they protect the cell: a flagged cell can't be revealed until you unflag it.

One habit worth stealing from speed players: you don't have to flag everything. The win condition never checks your flags — only that the safe cells are open. Flag where it helps you think (or chord — see below), skip where it doesn't.

Chording: the Speed Move

When a revealed number already has exactly the right amount of flags around it, click the number itself — all of its remaining neighbors open at once. That's chording, and it's how good players clear boards in seconds instead of minutes. The flip side: if one of those flags is wrong, chording detonates the real mine. A chord is a bet on your own logic, which is rather the point of the game.

A Worked First Minute

Click near the middle. A blank region floods open, ringed by numbers.
Scan the fringe for forced cells. Find any number whose hidden neighbors exactly match its value — flag them all. Corners and edges produce these fastest, because numbers there have fewer neighbors.
Cash in your flags. Numbers now satisfied by your new flags have only safe neighbors left — open (or chord) them and watch the frontier advance.
Repeat. Minesweeper is this loop: forced mines → flags → satisfied numbers → new territory. When the loop stalls, a multi-number pattern (or, in our version, the 💡 AI hint, which names the exact rule it used) gets you moving again.

Difficulty Levels

Level	Board	Mines	Mine density
Beginner	9×9	10	12.3%
Intermediate	16×16	40	15.6%
Expert	30×16	99	20.6%

These are the classic layouts from the original Windows game, and the ones we ship — plus a Custom mode if you want your own ratio. Density is the real difficulty dial: at 20% nearly every frontier cell touches multiple constraints, and the logic gets genuinely deep.

When Logic Runs Out

Classic Minesweeper occasionally corners you: two cells, one mine, no number to break the tie. Then you gamble. Our No-Guess mode removes exactly that moment — the generator runs a constraint solver on candidate boards and only deals ones that are provably clearable from your first click by deduction alone. It's the recommended way to learn, because every stall has an answer you simply haven't spotted yet, and the hint will teach it to you. When you do have to guess (in Classic mode), our strategy guide covers how to pick the least-bad cell.

PLAY MINESWEEPER FREE →