The inside of a dusty and dirty MacBook

If your MacBook is performing hotter than usual, the cooling fans and other areas might be blocked by dust, and that can foreclose them from keeping the whole machine cool. Here's how to clean out your MacBook so y'all can get dorsum to intensive computer work in no time.

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Opening upward your MacBook to expose its internals sounds like a daunting task, but it's actually pretty piece of cake since nosotros're only taking off the bottom comprehend and nothing else. That's all we need to access the main circuitry and cooling fans, which are just a few screws away.

What You'll Need

You will need canned air and a screwdriver

You lot'll need a few things before you get started, some of which you may already accept. If non, you tin can easily get them online.

  • P5 Pentalobe Screwdriver: Nearly MacBooks apply P5 screws. If you lot don't already take 1, it's best to buy a kit that includes a P5 bit.
  • Suction Cup: Needed if yous have a 2022 MacBook or newer.
  • Guitar Picks: Needed if you accept a 2022 MacBook or newer.
  • Compressed/Canned Air: An easy way to go rid of well-nigh of the dust.
  • Cotton Swabs: Great for removing or loosening upwardly stubborn particles of dust and/or dirt.
  • Organization and Patience: You'll want to keep track of screws and take your fourth dimension with something similar this.

Footstep One: Remove the Bottom Encompass

This step is pretty much the same for any modern MacBook, except for the newer Touch Bar models (more on that below). Flip over your MacBook and then that the bottom is face up. Take your P5 pentalobe screwdriver and remove the screws effectually the perimeter of your MacBook. Go along rails of each screw and where it goes, because some of them are dissimilar lengths.

Remove all of the screws from the bottom of your MacBook

Once you take all the screws removed, you lot can elevator upward the bottom cover from the back. Some MacBook models too have a couple of small clips that concord the cover in identify from the center, but you can carefully just pry upward the cover to unclip it.

Lift the bottom cover

Now, offset with the Touch on Bar MacBook Pro in 2022 (including the not-Touch Bar models), Apple introduced a new step to the removal of the bottom cover. In improver to the pentalobe screws, you besides accept to use a suction loving cup and a guitar pick to go the cover completely off. This iFixit guide shows you how to do that.

Pace Two: Inspect the Within and Locate the Fan(s)

With the bottom cover out of the way, y'all at present have admission to the internal components of your MacBook. Take the time to inspect everything for dust buildup. You lot probably won't have to wait that difficult.

Inspect the MacBook's internals and locate dust build up

Next, locate the cooling fan(s). Y'all may have more than one, depending on your specific model, but they're easy to spot. Just look for the circular blackness turbine-looking things. This is likely where there's the most grit buildup, since cooling fans suck in air from the surrounding surface area. And so if your firm is particularly dusty, you might have a decent cleanup job ahead of you.

Locate dust in fans

Step 3: Gently Blow Out Whatever Dust

Adjacent, take your tin of compressed air and gently begin blowing out dust anywhere yous see it. You lot don't want to necessarily give it wide-open throttle, since there's the risk of damaging components.

When you go to the fan, be sure to use a finger to hold the fan in identify and go on information technology from spinning while you use the compressed air. Otherwise, the fan will spin up fashion faster than information technology's designed to, which could damage the fan motor and the fan bearings.

Wipe away and clean dust

If there's dust that's particularly stubborn, you can use some cotton swabs to loosen it up and then accident it out, but about of the dust should escape without much problem.

Once you're done, just reattach the bottom cover and make sure you press in the clips in the center to seat them in place. From there, screw it dorsum on and you're dorsum in business.

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