Chances are you’ve got half a digestive’s worth of crumbs and other lint stuck under the keys of your keyboard.
It’s a good idea to clean these devices regularly, especially if you’ve let other people run a quick search from your desk once or twice!
Below we’ll talk about how best to quickly clean your equipment.
How to clean your keyboard, mouse and screen without damaging them.
Mice
Assuming You’ve bought a new mouse in the last 20 years, by now you’ll have a laser mouse and won’t have to deal with the awful job of taking out the ball and scrubbing down the rollers!
These days, cleaning a mouse is as simple as taking a lightly damp cloth and wiping the surface.
We’d recommend using disinfectant wipes, as your mouse’s plastic coating should be hard wearing.
Disconnect the mouse from it’s USB port, and wipe over any exposed surfaces.
If you want to do a very thorough job, you can use the tip of a cocktail stick to scrape out seams between buttons.
We recommend against wiping over the laser emitter, unless this part in particular becomes dirty.
This will prevent the possibility of causing any smearing that might make the mouse less accurate.
While these instructions are applicable to all mice. use a little caution and check any instruction manuals if you’re cleaning an expensive gaming mouse, as some will have a thin aesthetic finish that you wouldn’t want to rub off!
Monitors
Always use screen wipes or screen safe solutions on microfibre cloth to clean screens, or you’ll run the risk of smearing or scratching the screen.
Again, if you’re not using screen wipes, make sure to only lightly dampen the cloth with screen fluid, and don’t spray directly onto the screen to avoid the spray getting in via vents and causing water damage.
Lightly rub over the screen, using the minimum amount of pressure to clean it.
You can use the same cleaning wipes or solution to clean the base, the back and the bevel, but again make sure your cleaning cloth is not damp enough that moisture could seep into any vents.
Plugged in Keyboards (We’ll talk about laptop keyboards separately)
With keyboards, there’s an easy way to clean them, and a thorough way.
I thoroughly clean my keyboard twice a year, and I’ll be honest… Unless your keyboard was very expensive, I wouldn’t bother with doing so.
Quick Cleaning / Laptop cleaning:
Disconnect the keyboard (or shut it down if it’s a laptop keyboard) to prevent endless streams of gibberish on whatever document you were working on!
Hold your keyboard over a bin, turn it upside down and gently start to shake it Be careful here as you’ll shake a lot of dust and lint out. Don’t be surprised if you have to run a vacuum around afterwards.
Take a lightly damp cloth or screen wipe and vigorously rub backwards and forwards over the keys.
Use a little pressure and try your best to get between the grooves as much as possible.
As with a mouse, you can use a cocktail stick to get into some of the tighter seams, but be careful not to accidentally remove a key!
Once you’re done, leave the keyboard for 5-10 minutes to make sure they’re thoroughly dry before plugging them back in / switching the laptop back on.
Full thorough cleaning (external / usb keyboards only)
Remember that Mice and keyboards are very cheap, and sometimes it can be more cost effective to just replace them. That said, if you’re like me and are determined to see your beloved mechanical keyboard make it to it’s 10th birthday, here’s how to polish it up to almost new:
The reason this process takes so long is that you’re going to have to take every single key off of the board.
Before doing so, we recommend taking a photo of the key layout on your phone, or printing a key map from the internet to make putting them all back in easier. (Really… even after touch typing for 15 years I make a few mistakes without a reference)
Again, always disconnect your keyboard… Otherwise you’ll end up with endless streams of gibberish on whatever document you were working on!
Take a flat object like a screw driver or a butter knife and begin carefully removing the keys, starting with the space bar.
Place the removed keys in a container filled with warm soapy water.
Depending on the finish of your keys, it may be safe to use disinfectant or cleaning alcohol, but be aware this may diminish the coating and make the keys harder to read!
While the keys are soaking, hold your keyboard over a bin, turn it upside down and gently start to shake it Be careful here as you’ll shake a lot of dust and lint out. Don’t be surprised if you have to run a vacuum around afterwards.
After you’ve shaken most of the dust out of it, place the board back on the table, take an ear bud and dip it into disinfectant or cleaning alcohol.
Squeeze off any excess liquid so that the tip is damp.
Wipe this around the spaces between the keys taking care not to make contact with any exposed sections of the board. If any exposed parts do get wet, wrap the board in newspaper and place somewhere warm for at least 24 hours.
Dry off the keys (A hair dryer or desk fan works wonders for speeding this up) and start fitting them back to the board.
