How to play Minesweeper.
Learn Minesweeper rules, diagonal neighbors, flags, safe openings and quick opening. Practice beginner logic with free no-guess boards.
Try an easy field →Your goal: reveal the safe ground
A field contains a fixed number of mines. Open all tiles that do not contain a mine to finish. You do not have to flag every mine to win. Opening a mine ends the current attempt; in Nineleaf you can undo that move and continue, with the recovery recorded as a rescue.
What a number tells you
A 2 means that exactly two of the up to eight neighboring tiles contain mines. Diagonal tiles count. Edge and corner tiles have fewer neighbors, but a clue always refers to all tiles that touch it. A zero tile has no neighboring mines, so connected zero areas and their bordering clues open together.
Start from safe ground
For a daily field, open the leaf tile or choose Start puzzle. Everyone gets the same safe starting point. In Free play, pick any first tile: the new field is generated with a clear opening there and checked before play begins.
Use flags to keep your reasoning
Right-click a hidden tile, hold it on a touch screen, or switch to Flag mode. Flags mark what you believe is a mine. Toggle a flag again to remove it. A flag can be wrong; the mine counter is the total minus your flags, not a check of their accuracy.
A first logical step
Imagine a revealed 1 with just one hidden neighbor. That hidden tile must be a mine. Once that mine has been accounted for, any other hidden neighbor of the 1 is safe. Work with a small group of clues before widening your search.
The quick-open shortcut
Click a revealed number whose neighboring flag count matches its clue. Its other hidden neighbors open together. This action trusts your flags and can hit a mine if a flag is misplaced. Pause, Undo, and Hint are available when you want to slow down.
Play on your keyboard or phone
Use arrow keys to move the focused tile, Enter or Space to reveal, F to toggle a flag, and H for a hint. On a phone, the Reveal and Flag buttons choose what a tap does. Hard fields scroll sideways with roomier tiles; Fit board shows the entire field.