How to Adjust Cabinet Hinges: Side, Depth and Height Screws Explained

Here is how to adjust cabinet hinges of the concealed, European type found on nearly every kitchen built in the last 30 years: turn the front screw on the hinge arm to move the door left or right, turn the rear screw to move it in or out, and use the screws or cam on the mounting plate to raise or lower it. Each move is small, about 1.5 to 3 mm either way, so a quarter turn at a time is the rule. Tighten the mounting screws first, because a loose plate makes every other adjustment drift.

We sell cabinets for a living, and "my doors don't line up" is the call we get most in the first month after a kitchen goes in. Almost none of those calls end with a replacement part. They end with a screwdriver and ten minutes. Below: what each screw does, the order to work in, soft-close problems that look like hinge failures, inset and face-frame differences, drawer-front adjusters, and stripped screw holes.

Key Takeaways

• Three axes, three screws: side (front screw on the arm), depth (rear screw on the arm), height (at the mounting plate). "6-way" on a spec sheet means those three axes in both directions.
• The ranges are small: Blum lists ±2 mm side, +3/-2 mm depth and ±2 mm (cam plate) or ±3 mm (slotted plate) height on CLIP top. If a door needs more than that, the problem is the box, not the hinge.
• Work in order: tighten, height, side, depth, then recheck the run. Quarter turns only.
• Soft-close that stops short is usually a small door with too much damping, a door rubbing its neighbor, or a hinge not clipped home. Blum lets you switch the damper off on one hinge of a light door.
• Stripped holes take a glued hardwood plug in plywood and a glued dowel in furniture board. Drive hinge screws by hand.
• Know your hardware: Fabuwood, St. Martin and NOMA ship Blum; USCD's frameless line ships Hettich Sensys; most other lines we carry ship unbranded 6-way soft-close hinges that adjust the same way.

Table of Contents

• Before You Touch a Screw: Tools and a Two-Minute Diagnosis
• The Three Adjustments and Their Real Ranges
• Side Screw: Uneven Gaps, Rubbing and Sagging Doors
• Depth Screw: Doors That Stand Proud or Won't Sit Flush
• Height: Lining Up a Row of Doors
• The Order to Work In, Door by Door
• Symptom Chart: What You See and Which Screw Fixes It
• Soft-Close Doors That Stop Short or Slam
• Face-Frame vs Frameless Mounting Plates
• Inset Doors: Same Screws, Tighter Tolerances
• Adjusting Drawer Fronts on TANDEM, MERIVOBOX and Wood Boxes
• Loose Hinges and Stripped Screw Holes
• When a Hinge Needs Replacing, and Who Covers It
• Which Hinges Ship on the Lines We Sell
• When the Hinge Isn't the Problem
• Frequently Asked Questions

Before You Touch a Screw: Tools and a Two-Minute Diagnosis

You need a hand screwdriver with a #2 Phillips or Pozidriv tip, a flashlight, and a 4-foot level or a yardstick. Leave the cordless drill in its case. Adjustment screws turn with almost no resistance, and plate screws strip out of their holes the moment a drill's clutch is set too high.

Before adjusting anything, close every door in the run and step back six feet. Look at three things: the vertical gaps between neighboring doors, the line along the tops of the doors, and whether any door face sits in front of or behind its neighbors. Then decide which door is wrong. In a run of five wall doors, four that agree and one that doesn't tells you to touch one door, not five.

Next, open each suspect door and wiggle it by the latch-side edge. If the plate moves on the cabinet or the cup moves in the door, tighten those screws before anything else (see the stripped-hole section if they spin). A loose plate is why most doors "won't stay adjusted." Also check that a clip-on arm is fully seated on its plate; a half-clipped arm lets the door hang low and wobble.

Finally, put a level on the cabinet. Hinges can disguise a small box error, but that spends adjustment range you may want later (see when the hinge isn't the problem).

The Three Adjustments and Their Real Ranges

A concealed hinge has two halves: the cup and arm on the door, and the mounting plate on the cabinet side (frameless) or face frame (framed). The two screws on the arm move the door sideways and in or out; the plate handles up and down. Spec sheets call this "6-way adjustable," meaning three axes, two directions each. Blum calls it three-dimensional adjustment.

The ranges tell you when to stop turning. These come from the manufacturers' adjustment sheets:

Sources: Blum's CLIP top attachment and adjustment sheet, Blum's COMPACT series hinge and plate adjustment sheet, and Hettich's Sensys product data and Sensys adjustment guide. Blum's one-piece COMPACT BLUMOTION hinges, which screw straight to the face frame without a separate plate, adjust height by loosening the installation screws instead, with about ±3 mm (1/8") of travel.

In inches, two millimetres is a hair over 1/16". A door that is 1/4" out of line is beyond any hinge, and forcing a screw past its stop strips the thread in the arm. A big error means the box, wall, floor or door moved.

The direction of a turn isn't standardised, and a left-hand door moves the opposite way to a right-hand one for the same turn. Don't memorise a rule: turn a quarter, close the door, look, and reverse if needed.

Side Screw: Uneven Gaps, Rubbing and Sagging Doors

The side screw changes how far the door overlays the cabinet on the hinge side, which in practice moves the door left or right. Because a door hangs on two or more hinges, you can move the whole door by turning every hinge the same amount, or tilt it by turning only one. That tilt is what fixes most of the gap problems people call "crooked doors."

Worked example, a pair of doors on a 36" sink base. The center gap measures about 1/4" at the top and 1/16" at the bottom, a V shape. Both doors are leaning away from each other at the top. Turn the side screw on the top hinge of each door to push the top of that door toward the center, a quarter turn each, and recheck. Usually two or three quarter turns per door close the V to an even gap of about 1/8". If the gap is even but too wide overall, turn both hinges on both doors equally instead.

A sagging door is the same geometry in one door: the latch-side top corner has dropped, so it catches the neighboring door or the frame, and the gap is wider at the top on the hinge side. First tighten both plates. Then turn the top hinge's side screw to draw the top of the door back toward the hinge side, or the bottom hinge's screw to push the bottom out, whichever keeps the door's edge in line with its neighbors. Heavy tall doors sag most. If a pantry door keeps dropping after you've corrected it once, check that it has enough hinges for its weight; the hinge-count guidance by door size is in our cabinet hardware guide.

A pair of doors that rub each other have too little center gap. Move each door toward its own hinge side by the same amount; taking the whole correction from one door leaves the pair off-center on the box.

Depth Screw: Doors That Stand Proud or Won't Sit Flush

The rear screw on the arm moves the door toward or away from the cabinet face. Use it when a door sticks out past its neighbors, when one corner stands off the frame while the other touches, or when a door hits the face frame or the cabinet edge before it closes.

How it works depends on the hinge. On Blum's current CLIP top hinges the rear screw is a spiral cam, so you simply turn it and the door moves; Blum's sheet gives +3/-2 mm of travel. On older CLIP hinges without the cam, Blum's instruction is to loosen the rear screw on every hinge of the door, set the depth by hand, and retighten. If you turn a rear screw and nothing happens, you probably have the second kind.

Worked example, a wall door proud at the top. The bottom of the door sits against the frame, but the top corner stands out about 1/16" (roughly 1.5 mm). Turn only the top hinge's depth screw to pull the top in, a quarter turn at a time, until the top corner meets the frame. Then look at the latch side: if the whole edge now meets evenly, you're done. If the door still rocks corner to corner when pressed, the door may be slightly twisted, and depth adjustment can split the difference but not make a twisted door flat.

Depth also cures doors that "bounce." If the door touches its neighbor or the cabinet edge just before the closing spring takes over, it springs back open; moving it out 1 mm usually fixes that. Also look inside for a shelf, bin or pull-out touching the back of the door.

Height: Lining Up a Row of Doors

Height is the adjustment people look for on the hinge arm and can't find, because it lives at the mounting plate. There are three common setups, and a flashlight will tell you which one you have.

• Cam plate. A small round cam screw on the plate, often with an arrow or a slot. Turning it raises or lowers the door without loosening anything. Blum lists ±2 mm on its cam plates, including its face-frame cam adapter plate.
• Slotted plate. The plate's screw holes are elongated vertically. Loosen both plate screws a turn, lift or lower the door by hand, and retighten. Blum's one-piece wing plate allows ±3 mm this way.
• One-piece face-frame hinge. No separate plate; the hinge screws straight into the face frame through slotted holes. Loosen the installation screws, reposition, retighten. Blum's COMPACT BLUMOTION sheet gives ±1/8".

Move every hinge on a door by the same amount, or the door tilts as it rises. With slotted plates, rest the closed door on a paint stir stick or a few playing cards while you snug the screws.

Worked example, a run of 30" wall cabinets. Four doors line up along the top; the fifth sits about 1/16" low. On a cam plate that is roughly a half to three-quarter turn at each hinge. Adjust the top hinge a quarter turn, then the bottom hinge the same, close, sight along the tops with a level, and repeat. Don't lower the other four to match; the four that agree are almost always right.

The Order to Work In, Door by Door

Each adjustment nudges the others a little, so the order matters more than it seems. This is the sequence we use for cabinet door alignment on a new kitchen punch list:

1. Tighten. Snug every plate screw and every cup screw on the door. Firm, not cranked.
2. Height. Line up the top edges of the run (on base cabinets, the bottom edges or drawer-front lines, whichever the eye reads first).
3. Side. Set even gaps between doors, and between doors and drawer fronts above them. On pairs, split the correction between both doors.
4. Depth. Bring every face into one plane and make sure each door closes without touching its neighbor.
5. Recheck the run. Close everything, step back, and look again. Expect to repeat steps 3 and 4 once.

Work from one end of a run to the other, starting at a fixed reference such as a corner or an appliance gap. On a new install, plan a second pass after a few weeks: boxes settle under a loaded countertop and full wall cabinets flex slightly. That is normal, not a failed first pass.

Symptom Chart: What You See and Which Screw Fixes It

Soft-Close Doors That Stop Short or Slam

On most hinges shipped today the soft-close damper sits inside the hinge cup. On Blum's CLIP top BLUMOTION and COMPACT BLUMOTION it has no speed screw; Blum's sheets give it one control, a switch on the cup. On COMPACT BLUMOTION the switch is marked "I" (on) and "0" (off), and the door must be closed once after switching for the change to take.

That switch fixes the classic new-kitchen complaint: a narrow door that closes slowly, then stops a fraction of an inch short. Two dampers on a 9" or 12" door can brake harder than the door's weight and hinge springs can overcome, and Blum's guidance for small or light doors is to deactivate the damper on one hinge. Check first that the door isn't rubbing, which looks the same.

Other causes, in the order we'd check them:

• A half-clipped arm or a brushing door. Either one robs the door of the momentum the damper needs to finish. Fix the geometry first.
• Temperature. Blum's CLIP top BLUMOTION product sheet notes that temperatures outside a normal room range change the closing speed without damaging the hinge, so a garage cabinet in January closes differently.
• The cabinet never had soft-close on that door. Some corner cabinets use hinges or mechanisms without a damper. Fabuwood's Allure spec book, for example, states that its Lazy Susan, Easy Reach and Pie Cut cabinets do not feature the soft-close mechanism. On those doors, a normal close is the design, not a fault. Our lazy Susan cabinet guide covers how those corner doors are built.

A door that now slams has either had its switch knocked to off (common after doors come off for painting) or has a spent damper. An integrated damper isn't a separate part, so the fix is a new hinge of the same model. Add-on BLUMOTION units for hinges with no damper are among the kits on Blum's hinge instructions page. Whether the premium hardware is worth paying for in the first place is its own question, and our review of Blum soft-close hinges answers it. For drawers that won't close softly, the causes are different; see the troubleshooting section of soft-close vs self-closing drawer slides.

Face-Frame vs Frameless Mounting Plates

The adjustments are the same on both; what changes is where the plate sits and how much travel you get. A wood frame around the opening with the hinge screwed to it means framed; a hinge on the inside of the cabinet side with no frame means frameless (our framed vs frameless comparison explains the construction).

Framed cabinets. The hinge mounts to the back of the face frame, either as a one-piece hinge screwed straight to the frame (height by loosening those screws) or as a clip-on hinge on a small adapter plate, often with a height cam. Fabuwood's Allure spec book describes Blum Compact Clip concealed hinges with Quick-Release, which is the clip-on type; Blum's COMPACT CLIP sheet gives ±1.5 mm side, ±2 mm cam height and +2.5/-1 mm depth. With less than 1/16" of side travel, bigger gap errors on framed cabinets usually trace back to how the boxes were fastened together; our face-frame construction guide covers the frame itself.

Frameless cabinets. The plate screws to the inside face of the cabinet side, typically into holes drilled on the 32 mm system, and the door covers almost the full box edge. Side travel is wider (±2 mm on Blum CLIP top and Hettich Sensys), but door gaps are tighter, so every error shows. On furniture-board boxes such as Fabuwood Illume, go easy on the plate screws; see furniture board vs plywood.

To remove a clip-on door, release the lever under the hinge arm (where Blum's CLIP top sheet puts it) rather than unscrewing the cups. The adjustments stay set, so the door clips back on in the same position.

Inset Doors: Same Screws, Tighter Tolerances

An inset door sits inside the face-frame opening on a fully cranked hinge arm. The screws and the order of work are the same; the margin is not. The reveal around an inset door is typically about 3/32" (see our inset cabinet guide), so a 1 mm error nobody would see on an overlay door becomes a lopsided gap or a rub.

Three habits help. Set depth flush with the face of the frame, not the neighboring door, because the frame is what the eye reads. Recheck the side gaps after any height change, since a slotted plate can shift sideways as you tighten it. And don't chase seasonal movement: if a solid wood door rubs in August but not in February, move it the minimum and expect to move it back. St. Martin's Heritage framed-inset line, which we carry, ships with Blum soft-close hinges; check the model on the arm for its exact ranges.

On beaded inset cabinets the bead around each opening makes an uneven reveal even easier to spot.

Adjusting Drawer Fronts on TANDEM, MERIVOBOX and Wood Boxes

Drawer fronts are adjusted at the runner, and the adjusters depend on the drawer system.

Blum TANDEM under wood drawer boxes (Fabuwood Allure uses TANDEM plus BLUMOTION runners). The adjusters are in the locking devices, the clips under the front corners of the drawer box. Blum's instructions for its 563 series runners list tool-free side adjustment of up to 1.5 mm (1/16") each way, turned equally on both locking devices, plus a rear side adjustment to square the box to the front. A tool-free height adjustment raises the front by up to 3 mm (1/8"), and a tilt lever at the back of each runner lifts the rear by up to 5 mm, tipping the top of the front forward. Some locking devices have no side adjustment. Details and videos are on Blum's TANDEM assembly page.

Blum MERIVOBOX metal drawers (Fabuwood Illume). Labelled height, side and tilt adjusters are built into the metal drawer sides behind the front, and the front clips on and off. Blum's MERIVOBOX assembly page shows each one.

Wood dovetail boxes on other undermount slides (most of the other lines we carry). The drawer front is usually screwed to the box from inside. Pull the drawer out, loosen the front screws a turn, and see whether the holes allow the front to shift; many are slightly oversized for exactly this reason. If not, check the slide's locking clips; many undermount slides have a side adjuster there. Work from the top drawer down, and match the drawer gaps to the door gaps below.

Loose Hinges and Stripped Screw Holes

If a screw spins without tightening, no adjustment will hold. The hinge is fine; the hole is stripped, usually by a drill at full torque during installation or by years of a heavy door working the screw.

In plywood or a solid wood face frame. Push two or three hardwood toothpicks dipped in wood glue into the hole, snap them off flush and let the glue set for an hour or more, then drill a small pilot and drive the screw by hand. For a badly chewed hole, drill it clean to 1/4" and glue in a short hardwood dowel instead. Either repair holds as well as a fresh hole.

In furniture board or particleboard. Toothpicks grip poorly in crumbled board. Drill the hole out a little larger, glue in a fluted hardwood dowel, let it cure fully, then pilot and re-drive. A slightly longer screw can find fresh material, but measure first so it can't come through a finished end panel.

When the cup pulls out of the door. The cup sits in a 35 mm pocket held by two small screws or press-in dowels. If those tear out of an MDF or engineered-board door, small damage can be filled with two-part epoxy filler and re-drilled once cured. If the pocket is broken through, the realistic answer is a new door. Tell us the line, finish and cabinet SKU and we'll check whether the manufacturer still offers that door.

A hinge that keeps loosening is a clue. Heavy glass doors on too few hinges, or doors swung hard into a wall, load the screws far beyond normal, so add a hinge or a door stop as well as fixing the hole.

When a Hinge Needs Replacing, and Who Covers It

Replace rather than adjust when the damper has stopped damping, an adjustment screw spins freely in the arm, the arm is bent from a door forced past its opening angle, or the clip won't lock onto a tight plate.

A replacement has to match the original's cup size, cabinet type, overlay and opening angle; identifying each is covered in the hinge section of our cabinet hardware guide. The shortcut is the part number stamped on most branded arms or cups. On a clip-on hinge you can usually replace the door half and keep the plate, if the new hinge is from the same system.

Coverage varies by line. Fabuwood's warranty, printed in its spec books, states that it does not cover Blum hinges or other third-party hardware; those fall under the hardware maker's own warranty. US Cabinet Depot's published limited lifetime warranty names door hinges and drawer glides as covered for the original purchaser. J&K's five-year limited warranty covers door hinges and the drawer glide system for one year from purchase. For other lines, ask us and we'll confirm the current terms rather than guess.

Which Hinges Ship on the Lines We Sell

Every line we carry uses concealed, adjustable, soft-close hinges as standard. The adjustment method above applies to all of them; the ranges and switch details differ by maker. This is what the manufacturers' spec books and our catalog data state:

The unbranded "6-way" hinges use the same three-screw layout, but we have no published millimetre ranges for them, so assume small travel and stop when a screw reaches its end. J&K ships ready-to-assemble, and its spec book notes that a wall cabinet's hinge side is changed by flipping the cabinet; set hinges after the boxes are fastened in place, not on the bench (see our RTA assembly guide). More in our reviews of Fabuwood Allure, Fabuwood Illume, St. Martin and NOMA, US Cabinet Depot and J&K, and the manufacturers' spec books are collected on our spec book page.

When the Hinge Isn't the Problem

We build and remodel kitchens ourselves, and on our own jobs the pattern holds: when a door needs more than its hinges can give, the cabinet moved or was never square. We don't install the cabinets we sell, but these checks come before blaming the hardware.

• A racked box. A base cabinet pulled tight to a bowed wall, or set on an uneven floor without shims, twists enough that its doors can't meet evenly. The fix is loosening, shimming and re-fastening, as in our guide to leveling and shimming base cabinets.
• Wall cabinets out of line. If a run of upper doors steps down from one end to the other, the cabinets were hung out of level. See how to hang upper kitchen cabinets.
• A warped door. Lay a straightedge corner to corner across the back. More twist than depth adjustment can hide means a new door.

A few doors needing a touch after install is not a defect; a run of doors all drifting the same way deserves a look at the boxes. If you're doing the whole job yourself, our guide to installing kitchen cabinets yourself covers fastening and alignment from the start, and how long kitchen cabinets last covers what wears out first over the years.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I adjust a cabinet door that won't close all the way?

Close it slowly and watch where it touches. A neighbor means the side screw; the frame or cabinet edge means moving it out about 1 mm with the depth screw. A soft-close door stopping short with nothing touching needs the damper switched off on one hinge.

Which screw adjusts a cabinet hinge up and down?

Neither screw on the arm. Height is set at the mounting plate, by a cam screw or by loosening the plate screws in slotted holes; on one-piece face-frame hinges, loosen the screws into the frame. Move every hinge the same amount.

How do you adjust soft-close hinges?

The door position adjusts exactly like any concealed hinge. The soft-close itself usually has no speed setting. On Blum BLUMOTION hinges the only control is an on/off switch on the cup, used to turn off the damper on one hinge when a small door closes too slowly.

Why does my cabinet door keep sagging after I adjust it?

Usually a stripped or loose plate screw lets the hinge creep back. Tighten the plate; if the screw spins, repair the hole with a glued hardwood plug or dowel. A heavy door on too few hinges will also keep dropping.

Can you adjust a butt hinge the same way?

No. Butt hinges and other exposed hinges have no side, depth or height screws. The fixes are tightening the leaf screws, repairing stripped holes, placing a thin shim behind a leaf to change the door's angle, or replacing the hinge. Our cabinet hardware guide explains the hinge types.

How much can a cabinet hinge be adjusted?

Not much, about 1.5 to 3 mm in each direction on the hinges we see most. Blum lists ±2 mm side, +3/-2 mm depth and ±2 to 3 mm height for CLIP top, and less side travel on its face-frame COMPACT hinges. Anything bigger points to the cabinet, not the hinge.

How do I adjust a drawer front that's crooked?

Adjust it at the runner. On Blum TANDEM, turn the side-adjust wheels on the locking devices under the drawer and use the height tab; on MERIVOBOX, use the labelled adjusters in the drawer sides. On other wood drawer boxes, loosen the front's screws from inside and shift it if the holes allow.

Get the Right Hardware From the Start

If you're still choosing cabinets, the hinge and drawer spec belongs on the quote, not in the fine print. We'll tell you which hardware each line ships with, whether it's branded, and what the warranty says about it. Our design service turns your measurements into a 3D layout and an itemized quote within 24–48 hours, and you can compare lines side by side on the Fabuwood Allure and St. Martin brand pages.

Already own cabinets from us and something won't adjust? Send a photo of the hinge and the gap through our contact page or call 609-900-3358. Most of the time we can tell you which screw to turn over the phone.