How to Clean Your Keyboard

Spending hours at your computer, whether for enactment oregon play, is unavoidable for astir of us. Constant usage is going to instrumentality a toll connected your keyboard. Dust and hairsbreadth buildup is inevitable, and fallen tortilla chips and sandwich crumbs tin beryllium avoided lone by the benignant of subject galore of america bash not possess. We’re not present to judge; we’re present to assistance you cleanable up. In this guide, we’ll item the supplies you mightiness need, and tally done however to cleanable your keyboard measurement by step.

These tips volition enactment good connected the picks from our usher to the Best Mechanical Keyboards. You whitethorn besides privation to cheque immoderate of our different cleaning guides, similar How to Clean Your Computer, How to Clean Your Smartphone, and past but not least, How to Clean Yourself.

Updated June 2024: We added immoderate photos, an electrical aerial blower, and refreshed our tips (thanks to our readers' suggestions).

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Keyboard Cleaning Supplies

You tin decidedly cleanable your keyboard with worldly you already person successful the house, truthful don’t consciousness similar you person to bargain peculiar cleaning supplies. Here are immoderate things you mightiness see and a fewer household alternatives you apt person lying around.

• Brush: I person had a pop-up brushwood ($7) for a fewer years, and it’s cleanable for sweeping debris retired of your keyboard, but you tin usage immoderate soft-bristled brushwood you person astatine location (a toothbrush oregon a 1.5-inch paintbrush tin work).
• Compressed air: A 10-ounce tin of Dust-Off ($11) volition past you for ages and tin beryllium precise effectual astatine blasting things escaped from your keyboard.
• Electric Air Blower: A bully alternate to compressed aerial is simply a rechargeable electrical aerial blower that you tin usage again and again. I person the KiCa Jetfan 2 ($99), which has a sliding power for upping the powerfulness and blasting everything retired and a mates of attachments to ore the air. Battery beingness is amazingly bully and you tin recharge via the USB-C larboard connected the bottom. It's pricey, but I emotion it. You tin usage it to blast particulate retired of anything, from keyboards and PCs to radiators and mesh chairs.
• Cloth: You astir apt person microfiber cloths already, and immoderate cloth volition do, but I person recovered the fancy bladed ones you usage for glasses enactment best—pack of microfiber cloths ($10).
• Cleaning slime: A tub of cleaning gel ($6) tin beryllium effectual for removing particulate from hard-to-reach places similar a keyboard, but I don’t urge it. Apart from wide ickiness, it leaves a residue, gets dirty, and deteriorates quickly, leaving you with a slimy messiness that can’t beryllium eco-friendly.
• Cotton swabs: You mightiness person Q-Tips already, oregon you tin snag inexpensive cotton swabs ($3) and usage them to cleanable betwixt keys. Wooden toothpicks enactment good for caked-on grime.
• Isopropyl alcohol: Dampening your cloth oregon fabric swab with h2o volition usually bash the trick, but intoxicant is simply a precise effectual cleaner. This Max Professional spray ($10) is casual to use.
• Magic eraser: For scuff marks and stubborn dirt, magic erasers ($7) made of melamine tin beryllium amazingly effective. Sometimes regular pencil erasers tin bash the trick.
• Keycap removal tool: If you’re truly going to municipality and heavy cleaning your mechanical keyboard, you whitethorn privation a keycap removal instrumentality ($6). (This 1 includes a power puller and a brace of brushes.)

You astir apt won’t request astir of this worldly unless your keyboard is genuinely filthy, truthful effort cleaning it with what you person earlier springing for extras.

How to Clean Your Keyboard

It’s clip to get to work. Start by turning your machine off, disconnecting your keyboard, and removing cables. Clear your table oregon array and assemble your cleaning tools.

Shake, Brush, Blow, and Vac

For comparatively well-kept keyboards, the pursuing 4 steps mightiness beryllium enough:

1. Begin by turning your keyboard upside down and mildly shaking it to spot what falls out.
2. Use your brushwood to mildly expanse debris loose. It works champion if you tilt your keyboard 1 mode past another, and brushwood down the rows.
3. If you person compressed aerial oregon an electrical blower, usage abbreviated blasts (but don’t get excessively close) to dislodge ungraded that’s lodged successful the depths. Tilt your keyboard astatine antithetic angles and stroke into the gaps.
4. If you person a tiny brushwood instrumentality for your vacuum oregon a handheld vac, usage it to suck up the ungraded you’ve uncovered and tally it mildly implicit the keyboard.