How to remove and clean your Macbook Pro Keyboard
Nachdem ich nichts im Netz fand, hier nun schön in Englisch und für alle:
»Wie man eine Macbook Pro Tastatur ausbaut und reinigt«
…after it was misused by apple juice, coffee and beer
In this article I will inform you about how to remove, clean and reinstall the keys of an Apple Macbook Pro. It was my own Macbook, so you can trust me. I did the cleaning yesterday, and it worked very well.
First Step: Removing the dirty keys
Note: You don’t have to remove the upper case!!!
Every Key is fixed on 3 points that are marked by the green cyrcles in the image above. You have to carefully push the little white plastic arms of the key out of their anchor with an acute tool like shown in the next image:
After this procedure the macbook looks like this: (The space key is a bit tricky!)
Second Step: Cleaning the Case
Now I cleaned the naked case with a toothbrush. Be careful with the little rubber nipples on each key-socket!
Third Step: Cleaning the Keys
You need a big glas with water and soap in it, like this one:
Put your keys in it, close it and shake it. Especially the closing mechanism of every key has to get very clean
Now the keys have to get dry. I used a floodlight which shines very hot.
Fourth Step: Reassembling the keyboard
It is not very difficult to reassemble the Macbook Pro Keyboard. Just push the clip on the anchor and let it snap in.
Trick for the Keys:
You will need a trick for the keys ‘function’, ‘control’, ‘alt’, ‘apple’, ‘Space’, and ‘apple’. Just take a wire and stick it through the closing mechanism like this:
than push it in its anchors and remove the wire.
Congratulations! You have safed 500,-€!!!
February 21st, 2007
It’s actually easier to remove the keys by snapping them off. You pull up on the top edge of a letter key to snap it off (though the scissor-brackets on the function and arrow keys are sideways, so you pull on one side). Each key is attached to the bracket by two snap-clips (narrow-spaced, towards the top of the key) and two slider clips (wide-spaced, towards the bottom). The side with the snap-clips is the side that you pull up on. Once you remove the key, it is much easier to remove and replace the scissor-brackets, even with just your fingers. To put a key back on, you just snap it back on, pushing slightly in the direction of the snap-clips to ensure the slider-clips are on to begin with.
Also, if you are able to go to the Genius Bar at an Apple Store, they generally have stashes of old, dead keyboards and can give you replacement keys and scissor-brackets for free, no questions asked.
March 12th, 2007
Ich benötige das Tastatur Layout in Deutsch, hast Du eine Idee?
Gruss Tilo
March 12th, 2007
Ich habe meinen Laptop mit gereinigter Tastatur zu Gravis in Berlin gebracht, beim Reinigen war die Alt-Taste leicht beschädigt worden, und siehe da: Sie haben mir wegen Garantiefall eine komplett neue eingebaut!
Sehen ja nichts mehr von Saft oder Kaffee.
@Tilo: meinst du das Layout in Hard- oder in Software?
March 19th, 2007
It might have been helpful to mention which side of the arrow keys the snaps are on John…
March 26th, 2007
I tried snapping the keys off my Intel Macbook Pro and when I put them back into place my W key no longer works and the keys are no longer anywhere near straight and i have typing errors often. I DO NOT recommend “snapping” them off the Intel version. Not sure about older ones. If anyone has any recommendations on how I can get them straight again I would be grateful.
April 12th, 2007
[...] [Via Nonverblog – The same like http://www.nonverbla.de in written words.] [...]
May 27th, 2007
Thanks for the info and the pics. My spacebar was squeaking when pressed on the left side. I looked under the key on its left side and saw the clip “hook” outside the retaining metal “clasp”. I just used a tiny screwdriver to place the hook back under the clasp and it minimized the squeak a little bit.
June 17th, 2007
this page was very helpful, thanks. i spilled a beer into my computer and the keys were sticky. after cleaning the keys my computer is great.
i do have a couple of tips of my own now that i too am an expert…
when snapping the keys back in place, for stubborn keys as well as the shift keys and spacebar (which have those tricky metal rods) here’s the easiest way to get them back in:
underneath the key there is the white mechanism that moves up and down. snap that off and place it securely in the hook/scissor thing. once that’s in place the key will snap perfectly on it. this puts less pressure on the metal hooks (which bend) and the plastic tabs (they break, i learned the hard way).
good luck!
June 25th, 2007
Thanks sammy, the extra tip @ the bottom really helped, and thanks to the poster really helped.
August 7th, 2007
Thanks for the good explanation. My “R” key wasn’t depressing properly — had something under it (those kids!!) — and I removed it to clean it. It is NOT intuitive how these keys work. One side of the little white plastic “folding chair” popped out of its pin when I removed it so it was not easy to tell how it reassembled. When the white pieces are seated properly before clipping them back on the keyboard, they should be laying flat, one seated inside the other. The center pin hole is facing down on the larger piece and the smaller piece is pinned in there. Then you can pop the key on without force quite easily. I braved pulling another key off to see how it worked, which helped. I really appreciated the pictures! Could use another closeup of a properly seated white piece in the computer without the key.
September 12th, 2007
I DID IT!
Im a unknowing female student of architecture and i spilled Wodka-Cranberry over my keyboard. It took me maybe 5 hrs and as u can see all of my buttons work just fine again.
It is possible to take te buttons off without ANY PRESSURE, only take some pointed object and start pushing back the plastic ‘chair’ on one of the top ends.
THANK U GUYS VERY MUCH, see, I saved 500 bucks right away.. well, actually I think someone should pay me now for doing this, but it was my own MacBook Pro.. haha!
Cheers!
November 16th, 2007
Thanks a lot. My mom spilled a glass of orange juice (with pulp) over my MBP. We spent an hour trying to get as much of it out of the keyboard using flux paper. Keys got sticky anyway, so I had to remove some of them. Thanks to this page, they’re all clean now, thanks a lot!
Bensch
November 21st, 2007
Thanks. My problem was not a keyboard “spill”, rather one key that became harder to push each time. I removed the key (with my fingernail) from the top, along with the key beside it (control factor) and found that the white “folding chair” were misaligned. Using the proper key as a guide, I reassembled the white pieces properly and resnapped both keys back on…..Works perfectly. Thanks !
- Brent
December 4th, 2007
I would suggest staying well clear of this tip. I just spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to put the spacebar back on. In the end, I found that I had busted one of the plastic shapes on the underside of the spacebar that holds one of the plastic scissor bits in place. I could get it back to working order by removing that scissors – the keyboard seems to work fine with only the two scissors on the sides in place, but the spacebar is slightly louder.
Anyway, unless you live in a place with easy access to spare keys and scissors, avoid this tip. You may well end up with a busted keyboard. I think I was mostly lucky that I didn’t mess it up completely.
December 15th, 2007
Works great – space bar was not that tricky (I was worried after reading some of these comments). All letter keys come off from the left, and it helps to start with the upper or lower left corner – especially if you have apple juice gluing the keys to the scissors.
January 21st, 2008
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
January 23rd, 2008
I actually discovered this trick with an Acer PC when I got a fingernail stuck underneath a key and it snapped off. I panicked (it was a brand new computer at the time) and tried to snap the push back in – and low and behold, it worked. xD I pulled a few more keys off out of curiosity, and figured it would be a very easy way to clean them if I should need to. After pulling some keys of my Macbook the contraption that holds them on seems to be exactly the same. It’s not hard to do, as long as you’re careful.
January 24th, 2008
Some conversation here about popping the key caps off (and disassembly — read all of the comments in the post and the below Apple article if you try this).
http://www.takeitapart.net/archives/macbook-pro/
Here are Apple’s details to disassemble (screw sizes, locations, spacers, tabs, tape, etc. )if you have to go that far:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8237/macbookpro
February 19th, 2008
My ‘F’ key was not depressing properly, leading to a lot of missed f’s when I typed. Frustrating! Using these instructions as a guide, I popped the f key off using a jackknife and slight pressure with my fingernail. I lifted up on the top of the key and used the jackknife to poke the white arm out of its metal hole (pictured above). By the way, I’m using a Macbook Pro.
Anyway, it turned out there were a few cat hairs wrapped around the key fixtures which must have been interrupting the connection. I cleaned these out and used sammy’s method (above) to put the key back on. I found trying to put the key back on with the white plastic scissors attached to it very difficult (possibly because I had only popped one key off), but snapping the white plastic off the key and into the keyboard, then snapping the key down on to it worked much easier. Now it works like it should! Thanks guys.
May 16th, 2008
Star!! Saved my life
July 8th, 2008
Great stuff, good tips, here’s mine in equation form:
(orange juice + banana juice) x MacBook Pro = NIGHTMARE!!!
Was scary to get first key off….go gently guys….there are some delicate plastic pieces in there. But once you’ve got the hang of it you’ll want to do ‘em all…!!
It’s so satisfying to here the keys like new. Use Sammy’s tip for replacing them, when you take the white plastic assembly off the key, start with the narrower end with the larger clips, as it seems stronger.
Cheers!
September 3rd, 2008
I spilled wine on my MBP keyboard; keys got sticky and erratic. Took it to local authorized repair shop. They replaced keyboard same day for a little over $100 US. Not bad. But I soon spilled on it again, not as much. Not as sticky but need to try to clean up a couple of keys. Will try the advice posted here.
It was easy to remove entire keyboard on earlier models w/o even using any tools. MBP requires removal of, I believe, 32? screws; a bit of a project. Since this spill was small I’m simply going to try turning machine upside down and using a spray bottle to spray some warm water up into keyboard from below w/o flooding machine then drying w some compressed air. If that doesn’t work I’ll try removing some keys.
September 30th, 2008
hi…. i removed all of the keys on my mbp bc i had spilled beer on the keyboard. if the keys do not work even when cleaned… is it possible that the liquid damaged them… and how do i fix that!?
October 29th, 2008
I accidentally my whole keyboard…
What do i do?
November 20th, 2008
I have an orig 15in MBpro onto which I spilled about a half a teaspoon of coffee (this time). 3 of 4 arrow keys now don’t work. Spills are not covered by AppleCare, and I have about 6 mos of AC to go which I don’t want to void by opening up my machine.
Here is my plan.
1 Remove battery and pop off offending key tops
2 Apply 1-2 drops to key subsystem of
a) distilled water
or
b) 95% ethanol
3) Wiggle around the rubber key subsystem
4) Blow with hairdryer on low for (a) long time or (b) short time.
5) Start up and hope for best.
I assume the volatility of the alcohol is an advantage.
Will it damage parts?
Thanks,
David – Dallas
December 20th, 2008
After an orange juice accident, I tried it with my space bar… and that works! Crazy, I was so afraid to do something wrong, but it worked perfectly. Thank you SO much!
January 4th, 2009
I got the mechanics working,
but even though I was trying
to be careful cleaning with
toothbrush, I got some water
on something that needs to
be dry. After 36 hours
of drying, all but 3 keys
on the right side were working.
Then I got a hair-dryer and tried
to finish it off as I was getting
impatient. In no time, I had
melted 5 keys. They are just
plastic caps. Watch out for
hair-dryer, and make every effort
to see that no excess water,
not even a drop, from the tooth
brush goes anywhere. It would
probably be safer to disassemble
the entire MBP and then you could
get the keyboard out and
clean the mechanical parts
separately without problems.
January 25th, 2009
a stubborn/non-responsive s key….read all and went at it….worked great. easy fix with the fingernail from the left side. had a bit of gunck under it….a spray of air, pressed it back into place and presto…thanks
April 25th, 2009
Does it work with and Intel MacBook Pro.
I tried to get the Space bar off – but it didn’t seem like it wanted to go.
Also is there a fix for a sticky trackpad button?
Thanks,
EG
May 11th, 2009
Just some feedback from my recent efforts.
MBP 17″ X, C and Apple keys went bad. Either not registering or calling up strange functions eg Google search indicating that it could be a software problem. However, I went ahead and removed both the cover and the scissors mechanism beneath – noticed some fluff that I sprayed lightly with alcohol and then blew dry with compressed air. Replaced the keys – everything worked fine. So, concluding that the fluff was interfering with the keypad contact and either not generating a keypress – or an erroneous signal.
February 28th, 2010
Toller Bericht ich habe, mir den Blog, direkt meinen Bookmarks hinzugefuegt. Ich bin gespannt was es hier noch tolles zu lesen gibt.