You should clean your keyboard on a regular basis to prevent dirt, dust, pet hair, and food debris from accumulating between and beneath the keys, as well as on the palm rest and around the keys. It’s a good idea to do this once a week or anytime you see dirt building up. A little portable keyboard vacuum is the simplest and quickest method to keep the keyboard suitably clean. Anti-static accessories, such as the small nozzle on the vacuum, are ideal for getting between the keys.
- Disconnect your keyboard from your computer with care.
- Turn your keyboard upside down and tap it with one hand while holding it firmly with the other to remove crumbs or dust.
Tip: To prevent creating a mess in your workspace, try doing this over the kitchen sink or outdoors.
- If you have one, blow dust out from beneath the keys of your mechanical keyboard using an air cannon or compressed air instrument.
- A little hand vacuum cleaner may also be useful for cleaning a keyboard. Most electronic retail chains also sell special keyboard vacuum cleaners.
- If you spilled water, coffee, or any liquid on your keyboard, use a cloth to absorb as much as possible. Slowly dab and wait a few seconds for the moisture to soak.
Remember: Avoid wiping motions with a paper towel, since this might leave paper residue in the spaces of the keyboard.
- After absorbing as much liquid as possible, turn the keyboard upside down in a bucket or sink for at least two days to let all of the moisture to evaporate. Remove the keys from the keyboard as soon as possible to ensure nothing sticky dries in them.
Remember: Avoid putting the keyboard in a place with a lot of humidity, such the bathroom or the laundry room.
- Wipe the keyboard down with a slightly dampened clean towel.
Tip: Cleaning filth off mechanical keyboards is extremely easy with a microfiber cloth.
- If your keyboard is sticky, a tiny bit of all-purpose home cleaner sprayed on the cloth can help neutralize whatever is trapped on the keys.
Remember: When cleaning the bathroom, avoid using harsh chemicals or powerful cleansers. These may discolor your keyboard and make the letters on the keys disappear.
- Clean your keyboard using keyboard cleaning gel. Cleaning gel, which adheres to the curvature of the keyboard to reach regions not reached by a cloth, may be a very efficient method to clean mechanical keyboards.
- Clean each keycap separately. If the mechanical keyboard is very dusty or sticky, a keycap puller tool may be used to remove each keycap separately for cleaning. While the keycaps are removed, you may wish to clean the keyboard base with a pipe cleaner or cloth.
Tip: Most online electrical businesses sell keycap pullers, which are reasonably priced.
What’s the Best Way to Clean Keycaps?
Because keycaps are really simply plastic, you can clean them much more thoroughly than the mechanical keyboard base.
Some users like to use dishwashing solutions and a brush to clean their keycaps, while others prefer to soak them in soapy water. Cleaning wipes may also be used, however, any cleaning chemicals containing acids or bleach should be avoided since they can affect the color of the keys and destroy the writing.
After cleaning your keycaps, let them dry for at least two days before reinstalling them on the base since the plastic might absorb moisture and harm the keyboard.
Is it possible to clean a mechanical keyboard with water?
Washing the keycaps and the surface of the keyboard base with a moist cloth will help remove sticky residue and filth, but cleaning the inside and exposed electrical components is not suggested.
Even though a keyboard is advertised as water-resistant or waterproof, it’s better to clean it using dry techniques like an air gun, vacuum cleaner, pipe cleaner, cloth, or cleaning gel.
How Often Should Your Mechanical Keyboard Be Cleaned?
In general, wiping down your mechanical keyboard with a towel and some soft cleaning agent once a week is a good idea to keep germs and hazardous bacteria at bay. If you share your computer with other family members or friends, this is extremely crucial.
When it comes to giving your mechanical keyboard a decent deep clean, it all comes down to how frequently you use it, how filthy it becomes, and how much spare time you have. Once a month, some tech aficionados prefer to remove all of the keycaps and clean them as well as the base, but this is likely too time-consuming for the ordinary computer user.
While thorough cleaning of your mechanical keyboard may be difficult to schedule on a regular basis, you should schedule a fast surface clean once a week to keep bacteria at bay.
A more practical cleaning aim would be to include a thorough mechanical keyboard clean to your list of activities to perform at the start of each New Year, and then give it another clean when you have free time later in the year. All the better if you can clean it more often than this.
