The goal of Klondike solitaire is to place all the cards in each suit in stacks of ascending rank. Stacks of cards with alternating colors in descending rank can be built in the bottom half of the screen as an intermediate step.

There are three areas of the screen. The building stacks are found in the bottom half of the screen. The leftmost stack has one card, with each subsequent stack having an additional card. Only the top card of each stack is face up. Removing the top card from a stack will turn over the card below it. The deck is located in the upper left corner of the screen and contains the cards which are not found in the source stacks. Three cards are initially removed and placed to the right of the deck with their face up. The top card of those three can be moved to another stack. Clicking on the deck, or right-clicking anywhere on the screen, will turn over the next three cards (if there are at least three cards remaining in the deck). If there are no more cards to go through in the deck, clicking on the outline of the deck will begin another pass through the deck. The number of passes through the deck is unlimited. The suit stacks are located in the upper right corner and are initially unoccupied.

To move a card, click on the card (which will highlight it) and then click on the destination stack. An ace can be moved to its suit stack. (This will usually be done automatically.) A card at the top of a stack can be moved to its corresponding suit stack if the rank of the card at the top of that stack is one less than the card's rank (Kings have a rank of 13, queens 12, jacks 11 and an ace has a rank of 1). A king can be moved to an empty space. A card can be moved from the deck, a suit stack, or a building stack to a source stack if the card at the top of the destination stack has a different color from and a value one more than the card. Ordered cards at the bottom of a building stack can be moved to another building stack if there is a card in the ordered sequence which has a different color and a rank one less than the card at the top of the destination stack. A card will be automatically moved to the suit stacks from the deck and building stacks if the cards which might be placed on top of it are already in the suit stacks. Clicking undo will retract an automatic move.