Never spray liquid of any kind onto your keyboard. Never spray liquid on your MacBook's keyboard. Ditto the floor or whatever surface the gunk has fallen onto. Once you've done that, give your keys a good wipe down with an electronic cleaning wipe. If you've got visible crumbs still hanging out on your keyboard, use a small vacuum tool to remove them. Wipe up or vacuum away any remaining pieces It could be the power key or delete key.Ĩ. Start at the top-right key - this varies, depending on which MacBook model you're using. This time, you'll start at the fn (function) key.Īgain, use the zigzag pattern to spray your keyboard with the compressed air. Using the same zigzag pattern, spray the keys again. Spray your keyboard from left to right in a zig-zag pattern. Start with the top left key and stop at the last key on the bottom right so that you don't miss a spot. Save the short bursts for spot-checking after you've done a thorough cleaning. The last thing you want to do is allow the gunk to fly under another key.Ĭontinuously press down on the nozzle for an even stream and slowly spray the compressed air in a methodical zigzag pattern across your keyboard. This is so the debris can fall out cleanly and away from your keyboard. Make sure you're holding your MacBook at a 70-degree angle, rather than vertically. Power off your MacBook before you start cleaning the keyboard. That'll mean less work the compressed air has to do. To get rid of any loose debris or crumbs, turn your laptop upside down and lightly tap the bottom. You also don't want that cable getting in your way. You don't want to accidentally press buttons that could delete important documents or type in a bunch of random characters if you disturb the keys during cleaning. Turn off your laptop and unplug it from the power cordīefore you start spraying your keyboard with compressed air, make sure you've got the laptop powered off and unplugged. If it falls out as you begin, you'll need to reinsert it.Ģ. Make sure you snap it into the nozzle before you begin, and make sure it's a snug fit. When you purchase a can of compressed air, it comes with a thin straw taped to the side of the can.
How to clean your MacBook keyboard, step by stepġ. On the flipside, if you find there's no gunk underneath, you may have a dead key, which is a bigger problem for you because Apple will have to replace the keys (which could take several days). Keep reading to learn a technique that works well and will help keep you from emptying a whole can of air for nothing. But you don't want to just aim and shoot because you may miss some of the hidden debris or lodge it further under the key. If your first instinct is to reach for a can of compressed air to clean underneath those keys, you're on the right track. It's annoying and keeps you from working as efficiently as you could. Tired of the "I" key on your MacBook's keyboard never pressing down because you spilled some sticky soda on it months ago? Unfortunately, you have sticky key syndrome - that's when dust, crumbs or other gunk gets stuck under a key and keeps it from depressing easily. But if you need to, hold the fn key down as you clean the F keys so you don't trigger the special functions.Got sticky keys? Grab a can of compressed air. Depending on your settings, the F keys shouldn't do anything in TextEdit.
There shouldn't be a problem except with the F1 keys. So go across each row and wipe each key, keeping an eye on TextEdit to make sure it is still the frontmost app and still taking all of the presses. The other way is to just thoughtfully clean each key while you have an app like TextEdit open to absorb those presses. The MacBook will be triggered to start, but you can usually finish a quick wipe before it gets to that point. If I just want a quick wipe, I shut the MacBook down.
There are third-party apps you can use to negate all key presses, but you know I don't like third-party apps.
If you lock it, then you are typing into the password field. They tell you to simply shut off the MacBook, but as you know, then typing a key will turn it on. This is a tough one, and most people that write about this get it wrong.