How to clean your keyboard without breaking it

Most of us don’t take good care of our keyboards. We eat over them, we spill things onto them, and the worst part of it all—we never clean them. A keyboard remains a sticky, dirty, and gross mess until one of the keys stops working or someone nearby comments on how nasty it is.

Fortunately, this cleaning process is not actually that hard to do. Think of it like a thorough dental cleaning, but for your computer. So stop being that person with the messy keyboard. Take charge of your life, and start with a clean keyboard. Here’s how.

Shut down your machine

It’s always best practice to disconnect your keyboard before you start the disinfecting process. Nobody wants liquid cleaning products near your hard drive when the computer is on. If you have a laptop, that means turning the entire machine off. If you’ve got a desktop computer, you can just disconnect the keyboard from the computer.

Shake it out

With a good grip, carefully turn your laptop or keyboard completely upside down. Stand over a garbage can and gently shake your device so that any dried up crumbs or pieces of food will fall out, thanks to the handy force of gravity. This debris removal is an important first step because it gets the big, bulky stuff out so they won’t get in the way of your more precise scrubbing action later on. 

Compressed air to the rescue

Just like any piece of furniture that sits in one place for a long time, the spaces in between your keyboard are going to gather dust. These particles, combined with any miniscule food crumbs, are nearly impossible to remove with gentle shaking alone. That’s where compressed air comes in. Compressed air, which is exactly what its name implies, comes in a can and can be purchased at any office supply store, super store, and even on Amazon. These cans are fairly cheap. And what makes them most amazing and useful is the fact that they are like a power cleaner for your keyboard. They can get out the dust in that random corner of your keyboard that you didn’t even know you had.

When using compressed air, Apple recommends tilting your keyboard at a 75 degree angle so that it’s nearly vertical, but not quite. Spray the compressed air into the keyboard and rotate the keyboard or laptop 90 degrees four times so that you reach as many areas of the device board from as many angles as possible.

Read more at: https://www.popsci.com/clean-your-keyboard-without-breaking-it#page-5