Free Games How to Play Minesweeper Without a Mouse (Touchscreen and Tablet Guide)
Minesweeper grew up in the age of the computer mouse — left-click to reveal a square, right-click to plant a flag. So what do you do on an iPad, a phone, or a laptop with no mouse attached? Good news: you do not need a mouse at all. Here is how the controls translate.
On a touchscreen (tablet or phone)
- Tap a square to reveal it — exactly like a left-click.
- Press and hold (a long-press of about half a second) to place or remove a flag where you think a mine is. That replaces the right-click.
That is the whole trick. Tap to dig, hold to flag. Once it becomes habit, many people find the touchscreen version more comfortable than the mouse ever was — especially on a tablet, where the squares are nice and big under your finger.
On a laptop trackpad
A trackpad works like a mouse even if it does not look like one:
- Tap or click the trackpad normally to reveal a square.
- For the flag (“right-click”), tap with two fingers (Mac and most Windows laptops), or click the bottom-right corner of the trackpad on Windows.
A gentle strategy reminder
However you point, the game is the same lovely logic puzzle: a number tells you how many mines touch that square. Start with the corners a number rules out, flag the mines you are sure of, and the safe squares reveal themselves step by step. There is no need to guess and no need to hurry.
Where to play — free, no download
Our free Minesweeper runs right in your web browser: nothing to download, no sign-up, and no pop-up ads over the board. It works with mouse, trackpad, or touch, and offers Easy, Medium and Hard boards so you can pick your pace.
Enjoy quiet logic games? You might also like Sudoku, Nonogram picture puzzles, or the rest of our brain and logic puzzles.