With as much as we use our electronic devices these days, it is more imperative than ever that we keep them clean! Our electronics can easily become breeding grounds for germs and bacteria if we’re not careful. Start by identifying which electronic devices you use most often, and then aim to clean each of those thoroughly once a week. An even better practice is to give them a quick wipe-down every day!
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Today I’m going to walk you through the steps to getting those electronics germ-free and sparkly!
Laptops
To clean your laptop, you’ll want to get a can of compressed air. You can find these at any office supply store. They’re incredibly useful for helping to blast dust and dirt out of the areas they like to hide, such as the keyboard, your ports, and the air vents. Make sure to give these areas a few good passes with your compressed air.
Next, give your keyboard and trackpad a good wipe-down. I recommend using something alcohol-based for cleaning all your electronics, because it will eliminate bacteria and it dries quickly. I used some lens-cleaning wipes and electronic cleaning wipes interchangeably throughout my cleaning because they were handy, but if you’ve got some rubbing alcohol lying around, just use a bit of that on a paper towel and you’ll get the same effect. If you’ve got a lot of gunk between the keys, try dipping a q-tip in alcohol and running it between and around your keys.
Now it’s time to tackle that screen. I wiped it down first with a lens-cleaning wipe (the electronic cleaning wipes or alcohol would work just as well), and then I gave it a second go-over with a microfiber lens-cleaning cloth. If you don’t already have a lens-cleaning cloth in your home, I would highly recommend picking one up. Alcohol-based wipes are perfect for getting grimy messes and fingerprints off your electronics, but they can often leave tracks of their own. So I like to use a two-part system for screens, alcohol then microfiber cloth, to make sure that my screens are super clean and shiny.
After the screen is clean, take a look at your ports. Pretty dusty and a bit grimy, like mine? Go over them with your compressed air, and then use your alcohol wipes to get the grimy stuff out.
I snapped one end off a q-tip and wrapped an alcohol wipe around it in order to clean my power port. Obviously, I wouldn’t recommend shoving a q-tip deep into the ports, but some shallow cleaning is fine. :-)
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Tablets & Smartphones
Once my laptop was clean, I moved onto my tablet. One word for tablets: SMEARS. Smear-y fingerprints everywhere! Never fear, a screen-cleaning wipe will make short work of them.
After blasting the headphone jack and plug port with compressed air, wipe them down with your trusty lens-cleaning cloth. Easy!
I did the same process on my phone that I did on the tablet. Although I didn’t take any pictures of it, I also made sure to clean my phone CASE, inside and outside, with alcohol wipes. There’s no point in putting a dirty case back onto your clean phone!
Desktops
That takes care of mobile devices, but what about desktop computers? The process is essentially the same as for the laptop computer, with the exception of the mouse.
Computer mouses can get pretty gross! Not only does the top get smeary and sticky, but the underside collects dust and grime too. Give it a good wipe with an alcohol wipe, and if you’ve got an optical mouse, give it a blast with the compressed air. If you’ve got a ball mouse, you can remove it to make sure it’s clean all the way around.
Desktop keyboards can take a lot of abuse. If you’re like me your desk often doubles as your “dining table” at lunch time, so crumbs and spills can be a problem. Also, dirty hands over time can cause some serious grimy build-up on the keys. So if wiping your keyboard down with alcohol wipes just isn’t enough, I swear by magic erasers.
Using a little section of a magic eraser will get all the icky ground-in oil and dirt off your keys with minimal effort. You’ll be amazed! A word of caution though: you’ll want to be careful if you’ve got an aluminum keyboard like the one shown here, because you don’t want to scratch it. Keep your magic eraser on the plastic parts as much as possible.
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As for your monitor, just make sure that you’ve wiped it down (alcohol then microfiber!) and that your ports are clean. Done! Your computer will be so happy. :-)
See? It’s not so hard to get your electronics clean and germ-free. And once you’ve done it a few times, it becomes a task that takes only a minute or two to accomplish. Those shiny, germ-free screens will keep you happier and healthier!
Wow! I do need this. Thank you so much for the great tips. I will be using them. I will also pin this for later.
Blessings,
Diane Roark
recipesforourdailybread com
Whenever I travel, even if I’m staying in a hotel just for 1 night, I bring either a can of lysol (or my clorox wipes) with me to spray down the phone and remote (among other things). Hotel rooms are notorious for not being cleaned the way they’re supposed to. I carry a canister of the wipes in the car and periodically wipe down the steering wheel and controls, etc, too. They’re also handy for cleaning hands after pumping gas. Thanks for a great post, Jillee!
Glad I’m not the only one! My family makes fun of me, but the first thing I do when I get to a hotel is wipe down all the logical surfaces with antibacterial wipes. The curtain pulls, door handles, light switches, knobs/levers in the bathroom, etc.
And you couldn’t pay me to walk barefoot on a hotel floor either!
Eeeeeesk! I just had a look at my laptop and phone and they are gross! Thanks for prompting me to clean :)
http://prettyflorals.co.uk
Electronics and phones at work are the absolute worst, especially if you’re “inheriting” your work station!!
One of the computer techs I used to work with said that if you unplug the keyboard you can just wash it off in the shower. I haven’t tried it, but it makes sense.
You used to be able to put the old Mac keyboards (not laptops) in the dishwasher. I don’t know if I would try it with newer ones.
One important note — always make sure your computers are turned off before you start wiping the screen.
My brother has been a systems analyst for 30+ years. He also recommended giving a keyboard a bath, literally. I doubted at first and started with three keyboards in the computer dungeon at work. They had all been identified at non-functional. Two of the three worked after having several days (about 5) to dry out. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to do this with a laptop (HA!), but after that I subversively went around to everyone’s work stations and swapped out usable keyboards (since we all use ergonomic) for their dirty ones. Eventually everyone had a washed keyboard, and we were… Read more »
Question: How can I get one of those OGT cleaning cloths?
If you use a shared computer at work/school use Glad Press n Seal to cover the keyboard. It is not a very green solution but its better than getting the flu. They also sell keyboard skin covers that you can use & I suppose you can sanitize that everyday, but they come in lots of sizes and at my job it probably would have “walked away”.
Hey CTY! I’m actually giving away 20 of them on Facebook. Head on over and enter to win one :)
I actually ruined a pair of $500.00 eyeglasses using alcohol which a friend recommended I do because it worked for her. I never did that again even though the gals at the eye doctor’s office said it would be okay. Really? Even with my antireflective coating? No way.
I also ruined the small screen in front of a word processor I was renting, back in the day, by cleaning it with alcohol.
Am I the only one curious about where the personalized microfiber cloth came from?
I keep a separate laundry bin for all microfiber, since it picks up thread and other stuff from all the other clothes, I wash it all on its own when the bin is full. I clean my house with the big cloths from Sam’s Club/Costco, so I end up with a good amount of them.
I actually had those made and I’m giving away 20 of them on Facebook today! https://www.facebook.com/onegoodthingbyjillee
I open my laptop, turn it upside down & gently shake crumbs out. Not all laptops are as tough as my Toshiba, but I haven’t had a problem with damage. I also use microfiber cloth that came with my eyeglasses to clean the screens and lenses on electronics. No smears or smudges! Thanks Jillee.
Ladies, if you own mac’s, it is best to carefully read the fine print on screen cleaning. I have a very large Apple monitor and I was told expressly by the Apple guys NOT to use wipes with alcohol in them on the screen, a slightly damp with water cloth was allowed but no alcohol, it will ruin the coating on the glass.
Nena
The same thing holds true with my Asus touch screen–never use alcohol on the screen it can ruin it and it is a very expensive repair
I just aquired an iPad and was told exactly the same thing by all my techie friends…NO cleaning wipes or alchohol in that particular device! However, when I do use the alchohol on my laptop and PC and phones, I use a cotton pad with it. I find that the alchohol just evaporates too quickly from a paper towel