How to clean your keyboard

Knowing how to clean and take care of your mouse and keyboard may be more important than you initially thought, as it can tend to extend the lifespan of your devices. Here are a few tips on how you can clean your keyboard and mouse hopefully extending the lifespan of your devices too.

Things you will need:

  • Cloth
  • Alcohol wipes
  • Compressed air can
  • Toothpick

Steps:

  • Before you start any of the cleaning processes ensure that you have unplugged or turned off your keyboard be it wired or wireless.
  • Once your keyboard is switched off, hold the laptop upside down over a flat surface and shake it. This will ensure any loose bit of debris or dust comes out of the keyboard to make the next few steps easier.
  • Get a compressed air can and begin to start spraying in between the keys to try and push out any more debris and dust they may not have come out with the initial shake of the keyboard.
  • Once you have sprayed the keyboard to a point where you are satisfied shake the keyboard over a flat surface again to get rid of any bits that have been made loose by the spraying process.
  • Now you’ll want to get a toothpick to try and get in any nooks and crannies on the keyboard to push out any debris or dust.
  • As soon as you are finished with removing debris from the keyboard use an alcohol wipe to try and proceed to thoroughly wipe down the keyboard to remove any watermarks or stains. You can use a general-purpose cleaning wipe but they can tend to leave behind marks or make the device sticky due to how wet they can be. If you don’t have access to any alcohol wipes use a cloth that has been lightly sprayed with some water or rubbing alcohol.

How to clean your mouse

Steps:

  • Before you start any of the cleaning processes ensure that you have unplugged or turned off your mouse be it wired or wireless.
  • To get started on cleaning your mouse you’ll need a toothpick, this is to get any nooks and crannies and scrape away at any difficult to get to areas with dust or debris.
  • Then get the compressed air and spray where possible as this may be difficult depending on your type of mouse. Without damaging your mouse, ensure that when you spray the air you try and clean underneath the left and right-click as that’s where the majority of dust and debris will be.
  • Using an alcohol wipe, wipe down the mouse to remove any watermarks or remaining dust and debris.

How to keep your keyboard and mouse safe?

Now that your keyboard and mouse are clean you’ll probably want them to stay that way, here we are just going to run through some ways to keep your keyboard and mouse clean.

  • Try not to eat food whilst using the keyboard and mouse. Although at first, it may seem obvious it’s easily the most common as people either at home or work will eat at their desk from time to time.
  • If you have a wired mouse and keyboard ensure that the cables are managed and taken care of. Having kinks in the wire can damage the devices whilst it also makes the mouse much harder to use.
  • If you use a wireless mouse and keyboard ensure that when you are finished with using them that they are kept either on a desk or a flat clean storage area. If they are being used away from the desk they can be left on the sofa or floor where people could stand or sit on them. Also when left in places like the sofa the keyboard could be cluttered with fluff or dust from the sofa whereas there is less chance at a desk.
  • Keep away from pets as well if possible as they will get fur and debris all over the devices.

Hopefully, these tips on keeping your devices safe have been helpful with helping maintain your keyboard and mouse.