Confused about the number of free pins on ESP32-C3 MINI-1 and ESP32-C3-WROOM-02

[danilux]

Hi, I want to build a project using the ESP32-C3 MINI-1 module, I need 7 free gpio pins for 7 button switches, I know 2 extras pins will be for USB type C D+ D-, and another 2 extras will be for the on board RST and BOOT buttons, so 11 pins in total (?) or I could repurpose the BOOT after booting so it would be only 10 pins.
I'm not very good at reading datasheets yet, I can't figure out how many pins are available, it says there are some for the flash memory but aren't those used inside the module and are not exposed out?


Later I will build a second project where I'll use 12 button switches plus the 2 extras for the USB D+ D- and RST BOOT so 16 gpio pins will be needed in total, do you think the ESP32-C3-WROOM-02 module could provide those?

would you recommend another module with the needed number of pins for these projects?

[MicroController]

Later I will build a second project where I'll use 12 button switches...

Notice that you can read 12 (=3*4) button states using 3+4=7 IO pins if you wire the buttons in a matrix configuration.