How to Change Your Crosshair in CS2

CS2 changed how you manage your crosshair. The console commands you may remember from CS:GO still work, but the game now ships with a native share-code system built into Settings: one string that encodes every crosshair value at once, importable in a couple of clicks.

It is the fastest way to copy a crosshair you saw on stream and the fastest way to hand yours to a teammate. This guide leads with that, then gives you the full console reference for when you want to tune a single value by hand.

If you came here to see what crosshair the pros actually run, the styles, gaps, and colors that dominate the scene, that’s a data question, and it lives in our pro crosshair settings guide, which computes the distribution live from cs2pedia’s dataset. This page is the how-to: the mechanics of changing your own.

Method 1: The Crosshair Share Code (Fastest)

The share code is the primary method in CS2. A crosshair share code is a single string (it looks like CSGO-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx) that packs every crosshair setting (style, size, gap, thickness, color, dot, outline, all of it) into one importable token. Paste it once and your crosshair matches the source exactly, at any resolution, with nothing to copy line by line.

Importing someone else’s crosshair

1. Open Settings (the gear icon, top-left of the main menu).
2. Go to the Game tab, then the Crosshair section.
3. Click Share or Import.
4. Paste the code into the import field and confirm.

Your crosshair updates immediately. That’s the whole flow: no console, no restart, nothing to type by hand.

Sharing your own crosshair

The same panel generates a code for your current crosshair. Open Settings → Game → Crosshair → Share or Import, and the Export side gives you a code for whatever you have set right now. Copy it, send it, done. Because the code carries every value, the person importing it gets a pixel-exact copy of yours regardless of their monitor.

The share code is also the cleanest way to move a crosshair between accounts or rebuild it after a fresh install, since one string restores everything.

Method 2: Developer Console Commands

The console is the manual route. Use it when you want to nudge a single value, say bump the gap by one or thin the lines, without regenerating a whole code. It is also how you read out your current setup.

Enabling the console

1. Go to Settings → Game → Game and set Enable Developer Console to Yes.
2. In Settings → Keyboard / Mouse → UI Keys, bind Toggle Console to a key (the tilde ~ key is the convention).
3. Press that key in-game to open the console and start entering commands.

To see your current crosshair values at any time, type find cl_crosshair in the console. It lists every crosshair convar and its current value.

CS2 Crosshair Commands

These are the commands you’ll actually touch. Each one below explains what it does, not just what to set it to.

cl_crosshairstyle

This is the master switch. It decides whether your crosshair reacts to movement and fire, and everything else is built on top of it.

• cl_crosshairstyle 4 is the static classic crosshair: it never moves, never spreads, stays exactly the size you set. This is the competitive standard and what the overwhelming majority of serious players use.
• cl_crosshairstyle 2 and cl_crosshairstyle 3 are dynamic: the crosshair expands when you move or shoot, reflecting your bullet spread. Useful as a training reminder while you’re still internalizing that you can’t run-and-gun accurately, but most players find the constant movement distracting once crosshair placement clicks.
• cl_crosshairstyle 1 is the legacy 1.6/Source-era crosshair.
• cl_crosshairstyle 0 is the default game crosshair and effectively a beginner setting.

If you’re past the early-learning phase, set this to 4 and tune from there.

cl_crosshairsize

cl_crosshairsize 2

Controls the length of the crosshair lines. It adjusts in 0.5 steps and most competitive players keep it small; large values turn the crosshair chunky and start covering the target you’re trying to shoot. Small and precise is the trend.

cl_crosshairgap

cl_crosshairgap -3

Controls the gap between the center and the start of each line. Negative values pull the lines inward so they nearly close around the center pixel; positive values open them up. Most players run a tight, slightly-negative gap to keep the aiming point compact.

cl_crosshairthickness

cl_crosshairthickness 1

Sets how thick the lines are, in 0.5 steps. A value of 1 is the common middle ground; going down toward 0 gives you a fine, near-hairline crosshair, while higher values read as bolder and easier to spot against busy backgrounds at the cost of precision.

cl_crosshaircolor

cl_crosshaircolor 1

Picks the color from five presets (0 = red, 1 = green, 2 = yellow, 3 = blue, 4 = cyan). Green and cyan are the perennial favorites because they cut through CS2’s map palettes: dust, sand, and concrete rarely fight a bright green or cyan crosshair.

For a custom color, set the style to custom RGB and feed in your own values:

cl_crosshaircolor 5
cl_crosshaircolor_r 0
cl_crosshaircolor_g 255
cl_crosshaircolor_b 255

Each channel takes 0–255. cl_crosshaircolor 5 tells the game to use those manual RGB values instead of a preset.

cl_crosshairalpha

cl_crosshairalpha 255

Sets the crosshair’s opacity. Lower values make it more transparent; 255 is fully solid. Most players stay at or near maximum so the crosshair never washes out against bright surfaces.

cl_crosshair_drawoutline

cl_crosshair_drawoutline 1
cl_crosshair_outlinethickness 1

Adds a dark border around the crosshair lines, which keeps them visible against light or cluttered backgrounds. cl_crosshair_outlinethickness controls the border width and accepts roughly 0.1–3 (default 1). It’s a personal call: an outline trades a slightly busier look for guaranteed contrast on any map.

cl_crosshairdot

cl_crosshairdot 1

Adds a single dot in the dead center of the crosshair. Some players want the extra center reference point; most leave it off to keep the aiming point clean.

cl_crosshair_t

cl_crosshair_t 1

Removes the top line to give you a T-shaped crosshair. The idea is that the missing top segment uncovers more of the target’s head. It’s a niche preference rather than a standard.

cl_crosshair_sniper_width

cl_crosshair_sniper_width 1

Sets the line thickness of the scoped (sniper) crosshair specifically. Some AWPers bump this to 2 because the thicker lines stay readable when they blur during movement.

cl_fixedcrosshairgap

cl_fixedcrosshairgap -3

An advanced option that fixes the on-screen gap so it stays consistent regardless of crosshair size. If you fine-tune size and gap together and want the spacing to behave predictably, this is the lever for it.

A pure dot crosshair

If you want just a dot and no lines, combine a few of the above:

cl_crosshairstyle 4
cl_crosshairsize 0
cl_crosshairdot 1

From there, change the dot’s size with cl_crosshairthickness and its color with cl_crosshaircolor. A handful of notable players run pure-dot crosshairs, but it’s a minority choice, and the dot demands very deliberate crosshair placement since there are no lines to help you frame a target.

Make It Stick: autoexec

CS2 normally saves crosshair settings between sessions, but a game update or a config reset can occasionally wipe them. To be safe, put every cl_crosshair* command you use into your cfg/autoexec.cfg file (inside your CS2 game directory). The autoexec runs on launch, so your crosshair is restored every time no matter what an update does. Generate your current values from the share-code panel or read them with find cl_crosshair, then paste the lot into the file.

What to Set It To

This guide covers the how: the mechanics of importing a code and the meaning of every command. The what, meaning which style, gap, size, and color actually dominate competitive CS2, is a data question, and the answer drifts as the scene evolves. For that, see the pro crosshair settings guide, which computes the live distribution from cs2pedia’s dataset of 1,000+ pro profiles, plus example setups from named players you can copy directly.

For copy-pasteable share codes from specific pros, see our pro crosshair codes reference - paste-ready codes for the most-searched players, ready to drop into the import panel.

Once your crosshair feels right, the rest of your setup is worth the same attention. See the full setup guide to tie your config together, browse player profiles to see how the pros configure the rest of their settings, and make sure your aim hardware is pulling its weight with the right mouse and mousepad.

Affiliate disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links, and a purchase may earn cs2pedia a commission at no extra cost to you. This does not influence which products appear or how they are ranked; the rankings reflect real pro usage data, full stop.