Why Wine and Macbooks Don’t Mix…and How to Handle the Aftermath

Why Wine and Macbooks Don’t Mix…and How to Handle the Aftermath

on May 1st 2012 with 164 comments

Ready for a revelation? A concept that you’ve never considered before? Well here it is: never ever, ever pour a glass of wine into your Macbook keyboard. Or, more practically put, be extremely careful when there’s a drink of any kind near your laptop. If a spill occurs, and you don’t act quickly enough, you’ll find yourself staring at a massive bill for a new logic board, hard-drive, battery, and anything in between.

Accidents do happen — so plan on it. What’s more important is that you learn exactly what to do when these spills inevitably occur.

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in July, 2010.

Step 1. Don’t Freeze. Unplug!

Macbook Wine Spill

Ahhhh! The wife (meaning, you) accidentally spilled wine all over your keyboard. From personal experience, I can assure you that, for some odd reason, your first instinct with a massive computer spill is to freeze for five seconds or so, in shock. Don’t do this! Luckily Apple laptops are pretty helpful about automatically shutting down to prevent as many issues as possible before they happen. The more recent laptops even have liquid detection…though I’m certain that Apple is more interested in voiding your warranty than protecting you. For those uninformed, most laptop warranties do not cover spills.

Nonetheless, don’t waste a single second. Quickly unplug the computer, and shut it down.

The walls and carpet may have liquid on them as well, but ignore that. The computer is far more important right now.

Step 2. Flip that Sucka

Turn the laptop over to let the liquid drain

The next step, which should occur within seconds of beginning Step 1, is to flip the laptop upside down, into an L-shape. Gravity will then force as much liquid to drain out of the keyboard as possible. Make sure that you lay it on a towel so that it can soak up the liquid.

Let gravity do its job. Immediately flip the laptop into an L-shape.

Step 3. Open the Back

Unscrew the laptop to reveal the insides

Using a tiny screw driver, unscrew the back-side of your laptop. This will, of course, vary, depending upon which model you’re using. I’m sure you can figure it out.

Particularly on Macs, not all of the screws are the same size. Make a note of which screw goes where.

Step 4. Remove the Battery and Hard Drive

Remove the Macbook Pro battery

Before progressing, ensure your livelihood and touch some metal objects nearby to remove any potential static electricity from your body.

Needless to say, batteries and liquids — especially sugary, acidic liquids — don’t play nice together. Wherever yours is located on your laptop, remove it as quickly as possible. Next, get the hard drive out as well. We don’t want to risk any liquid seeping in, and corrupting your file system!

And now that you know how easy it is to remove a hard drive, don’t ever again pay a person to upgrade your hard drive. It only takes a moment to do yourself. ;)

Step 5. Dry the Insides

Clean the insides of the computer after a drink spill

With a paper towel of some sort, begin cleaning the insides of your computer. Depending upon how much liquid was spilled, this may either be a quick or lengthy process. For yours truly, it took around ten minutes to clean everything.

Some people prefer to use a hair dryer to clean the insides. This one is up to you; however, I’d encourage you to not do so. Play it safe and use a towel. We don’t want to risk frying the insides.

Step 6. Rubbing Alcohol and Cotton

Clean the insides with a cotton swab

Next, we need to continue removing as much sugar and acid as possible from the logic board. Otherwise, over time, it can begin to corrode the wiring. Yeah, this isn’t good!

Using rubbing alcohol and a cotton swab, begin dabbing any stained areas — but be gentle. If you have access to the backside of your keyboard, clean that area as well. Unfortunately, on the newer Macbook Pro models, it’s extremely difficult to access this section. With past models, it was quite easy to remove the keyboard entirely, for cleaning purposes. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case.

Rubbing alcohol will help dissolve any remaining acid or sugar on the logic board.

Step 7. Leave it Alone

Leave the computer off for 3-5 days after a spill

Anxiety is a dangerous thing. Resist the urge to determine whether or not you’ve destroyed your laptop, and keep it off for a minimum of 72-120 hours (3-5 days). This will allow any remaining liquid to dry/evaporate first. Make sure that, while its drying, you keep the battery outside of the computer. This is mostly a precaution.

Keep the computer off for 3-5 days — no questions asked. Do not turn it on during this window.

Step 8. Cross Your Fingers

Cross your fingers

After 72-120 hours, reconnect the battery, screw everything back in, cross your fingers, say a prayer, and turn on the computer. Particularly if you’re using a newer Macbook Pro (2010+ models), you’ve done everything you can do. With hope, and more often than not, it’ll chime, and start-up like a charm. However, if the battery is dead, or the hard drive is corrupted, you’re next best option is to take it in for official repair. Of course, this will somewhat depend upon how skilled you are, when working under the hood.

About the Author

Jeffrey Way — me…yes, I’m speaking in third person — once committed a Cardinal Sin, and caused a massive wine spill into his Macbook Pro. Had he not followed these exact steps, he’d be forking over another life savings for a new Mac. Luckily, that was not the case.

Thanks for reading. Should the same ever happen to you, I hope this guide will help a bit!

 
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I'm the editor of Nettuts+, and love making the process of building for the web as easy as possible. Also, I'm finishing up my latest book on Laravel Testing! If you want be friends, say hi on Twitter.  

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  • nuku

    Use a ThinkPad! They have tubes in the inside which guide the fluid to the bottom, where it harmlessly flows out again. You still may want to clean those tubes if you spilled coke or ice tea, though ;) Btw, IF you have a ThinkPad (this is probably only true for the good, more expensive models, nor for a $500 ThinkPad. Yep, they have those nowadays. Don’t buy. If you want a ThinkPad, buy a “real” one) AND you spill something on it, DON’T TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN, that only makes things worse. Let it come out on the bottom of the device. This is what the official manuals say. And I do know from a friend of mine who spilled water into his ThinkPad (a T400) that all he did was turning it off and waiting for the water to come out again. Worked like a charm. That’s what you pay for in a ThinkPad. That half-eaten apple is what you pay for in a Mac.

    • James

      Being both a current and past owner of numerous Thinkpad T-series models and Macbook Pros simultaneously, I can assure you, there are many many other faults with the Thinkpad that cause me to almost always favor my Macbook. But let me tell you, it sure gets irritating hearing you Thinkpad owners preach this without any such consideration or knowledge of such things.

      I’ll live with the risk of spill damage in exchange for my other preferences. I’ve had someone spill a full cup of coffee on mine 2 weeks after I bought it, did all of the above almost instinctively, worked perfectly fine. Also had a supremely drunk roommate piss on an old Dell laptop when he thought the computer chair was a toilet. Repeated the above similarly (with a bit more disgust) and again, everything was fine.

      The key is simply that you act quickly and pull all sources of electricity. No need to pull the hard drive – it’s sealed anyways. You won’t get data corruption unless the controller on it gets fried by the liquids, in which case many other things in your laptop would probably already be fried.

      • http://redesigned.com Joshua Jarman

        At first I thought this article was going to be about the problems of running windows apps using wine on your macbook.

        I recommend using a program such as Hands Off which allows you to fine tune what apps can and can’t do online and to data. this prevents wine packaged apps from introducing an attack vector that can could be used to compromise your computer. I’d also keep your wine apps packaged up individually as mac apps using Winebottler, or similar alternative, you get a finer degree of control that way.

        Hands Off + Wine + WineBottler = Safe windows apps on mac.

        As far as liquids are concerned, i’d bet coffee is the king of computer spills.

  • http://wpcanyon.com Boba

    Or visit alcoholics anonymous (it’s better to prevent then cure). Just kidding.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      :)

    • http://www.momotouch.com/ Arol

      Don’t works! I tried it but then my MacBook wanted to drink coffee… :D

      • sohel

        Maki chut teri……

  • http://www.crearedesign.co.uk Steve Maggs

    Much as the hardcore coding posts are appreciated this is a welcome addition to nettuts! A cautionary tale if ever there was one. I’ve revived numerous phones from being dropped into beverages (and toilets, don’t ask) but not yet had to treat my macbook. This made me laugh (only because of the previous stated fact) but made me think about the glass of wine stood next to my workhorse last night.

    At least there is now a Heimlich manoeuvre for wet macbooks! Someone should turn this into an infographics style (laminated of course) help sheet.

  • http://www.jauhari.net/ Jauhari

    Sent to Apple Service Center is the clever ways ;)

    • Fabio Balducci

      well, i disagree. the point is you’re trying to prevent paying the book-in fee (in australia anyway) and also – like many service centers say – “your logic board is not working, you need a new one, give us a couple of grand and we’ll get it good as new”. they will probably resell yours to someone else or to yourself without you knowing it! i’ve had bad experiences with some twice.

  • Chris

    I don’t think Apple covers liquid damage, but still – doesn’t opening your computer like that void the warranty?

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Yeah, I believe if you take out the battery, it voids the warranty. But if you spill liquid into it, that should also void it.

  • http://www.webdesignkc.co.uk/ Rory

    Fantastic article, probably the most helpful advice Ive read all week.
    Sadly I lost my MacBook to gravy 2 years ago, Momma’s Sunday roast was never the same!

  • Dina

    Get a Toshiba,it has spill-proof keyboard:)

  • Rob

    If you had enough common sense you wouldn’t have wine near your Macbook :P

    • http://www.hsp.dk Henrik Pedersen

      And what would also apply to every other liquid… Don’t say that you NEVER drink beside the computer, and if you do say that, there are two possibilities…

      A. You are lying
      B. You are some guy who never actually uses a computer and just is here by mistake XD

      Either way, haven’t met someone who didn’t drink beside the computer :)

  • Adam Everett Miller

    Jeff, great post! I took my camera out the rain one time to try for a shot and yeah… I actually got water in the touchscreen viewfinder… As I was rewinding the footage, I could see air bubbles in my screen. I followed those exact steps pretty much and all was ok… I will say the waiting part sucked the worst cause… ah… what if I really just totally ruined it? Is it ready now, ya think? What if I just… no, I can’t…. bah!

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Yeah – the waiting part is easily the worst. :)

  • http://www.beforeiforget.co.uk Simon Jones

    You know I rather think Macs are resilient to being soaked. At the start of the year I dropped my MacBook into the bath for a second time! (I was watching a movie while I soaked in the tub) The laptop was completely submerged and lots of water came out of it when I rescued it.

    Having said that, I am sitting here writing this comment on that very MacBook! There appear to have been no ill effects to date – touch wood! But hey, I no longer use my laptop in the tub. I’ve reverted to dropping books in the tub, it’s far less expensive! :-)

    http://www.beforeiforget.co.uk/2010/say-hello-to-mermac/

  • http://www.alex-grover.com Alex

    And I expected to read a post about using the Wine Windows Compatibility Layer (http://www.winehq.org/) on a Mac book. I have to admit that I am quite amused by my mistake :)

    • Dave

      Glad I wasn’t the only one

  • BumperCaseVArmstrongBand

    You say your laptop would not have survived if you didn’t do these exact steps. I’m wondering if you pulled out the camera at the time of said spillage or just decided to reinact it for old-times sake. :)

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      Reenactment. :)

  • Antonis

    Good guide i had the same problem a year agor, my macbook had no problem starting up , but since then the backlight in the keybord is dimmer and the keys are a little sticky. I Agree that it’s very difficult to clean them up :)

  • Michael

    if you don’t have a ThinkPad, flip it first! disconnecting the power will probably happen as a result of flipping it. Since the unit will still be powered with the battery and shutting it down can take several seconds. A few years ago I was installing a new monitor for my client and dragged the power cable across their desktop with a Big Gulp positioned close by, tipping it over onto the Dell. I flipped it within a couple of seconds of the spill and I think that’s what saved the laptop and my relationship with that client ;) Hesitate and you lose !

  • http://www.buitenaardig.nl/ Phil

    Funny stuff! Too bad i would panic and try to get to this post first before shutting my laptop down. Im such a mess ;c

  • http://www.christrude.com Trudesign

    Remember to BLOT not scrub or wipe with the paper towel on the inside. be gentile!

  • http://freeplaystationcards.info/ Free Playstaiton Cards

    great article
    extremely useful to me and others
    thanks for sharing :D

  • Asker

    I was wondering, what is the mac model jeff is using. 15″ ?. I want to buy a mac book but 15.4″ mac book’s native resolution is 1440*900. My current laptop -> 1366*768. Its kinda hard to look at it (with windows) :)

    Hows the 1440*900 doing for you guys?

    P.S:- Watch Jeffery’s screen casts and you’ll buy a mac :D

  • http://madhukarah.tumblr.com madhukarah

    awesome post !

  • http://www.blog.afkarweb.com ahmed said

    yesterday i washed my white macbook with a sponge soaping it very well and turned it on like a sharrrrrm
    i always though that it has some isolate things liquids from electrical circuit

  • http://byte-news.com Ahmed “C.Z”

    Well it seems that we have to add another bad thing about wine :D
    thank god that i don’t drink wine :D :D

  • http://www.tiffanybestsilver.com Discount Silver Jewelry

    That’s wonderful, just keep it up.

  • http:www.scycreations.com Scooby

    Sorry to bump this old thread, and thanks to Jeff for the brilliant tut.

    I have a bigger problem. I fired my MBP up on Sunday morning (23rd Jan 2011), having not had it on since the previous Thursday. It fired up briefly then went off. I figured it was out of charge so plugged the charger in. It came on, but the battery symbol was showing “No battery present” If I unplugged the charger it immediately went off.

    Plugged the charger in again and it worked, but the backlight on the keyboard only lit the middle section of the keyboard.

    Everything worked fine while the charger was plugged in, anyway to cut a short story short, my partner admitted he’d been on my MBP on the Friday night and had spilt a glass of cider on it, so he turned it off and went to bed.

    What I want to know is, do I have any chance of cleaning it up after it laying dormant for 4 days, with no flipping it to get the liquid out, and if I can clean it up what’s the best way of going about it.

    Thanks in advance, and has anyone done this before.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      @Scooby – You might be out of luck. Is the keyboard responding at all? Are all the keys working? You might try opening it up and cleaning any left over liquid.

      Be sure to slap your room-mate for spilling cider, and then making zero effort to clean up the mess.

  • http://www.scycreations.com Scooby

    Thanks Jeff for the quick reply. The keyboard is working, all keys are functional, but only the middle section of the keyboard has the backlight. The MBP works if the charger is plugged in, but the battery power is showing “No Battery Available” when I right click on it.

    Do you have any detailed instuctions for stripping it down and restoring it.

    My roomie has been duly slapped and will pay for any necessary repairs for being a knob.

    Thanks in advance

  • http://www.myunv.com/ Sunny Singh

    Spilled Coke on my Acer Aspire once, and to be honest I didn’t have to do much to get things working again. Maybe I just got lucky, but all I did was turn it off and let things dry off for 10 minutes or so. I believe I also sprayed some water or alcohol as to dilute the acid.

    Oh and I still drink beside my laptop. I’m more careful now, but I can still easily spill it. Guess it’s a bad habit I will never break.

  • phiwo

    Hi thank you so much for the post. My accident happened just a. Few minutes ago so I’m trying really hard to remain positive! But your post gives me some hope that the situation will be salvaged! Many thanks all the way from SA

  • http://www.turkreno.com TurkReno

    Something you may want to point out to your readers is that regardless if you send it in for service, there are over 70 Liquid Spill Indicators in the most recent MacBook Pro from 2011. The official article from Apple detailing what I just said can be found here:

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3425

    Hope this helps =)

  • http://www.streeff.nl Evert Albers – Streeff.nl

    I once spilled coffe over a computer, and the first thing the helpdesk asked me was: “With or without sugar?” With would habe been really bad news, I understand.

  • Saulus

    i have recently spilt alot of wine over my keyboard ( it turned off instantly) i dried it out for three days and i turned it back on but the trackpad and general feel and performance has decreased so i shut it down again to prevent any further damage. what do you recommend? its a 13inch 2011 macbook pro obviously the warranty is now void, do try and clean it myself or send to a third party repair shop? or apple? help asap cheers….

  • Annie

    A friend just spilled a few drops (like 3 or 4) of coffee right at the edge of his trackpad of a 2011 MacBook Pro. He wiped it off, but some did go into the crack and the screen started moving around erratically for several seconds. When the movement ended, he tried to use the trackpad – and it worked for a few seconds – but then the erratic shifting of screen shots resumed. He turned it off, removed the power cord, and is planning on keeping it off for a few days. Any further guidance or advice on what to do at this point? Any predictions on nature/extent of damage? Thanks.

  • http://behance.net/myrcovcas Myrna Covarrubias

    I had a problem with my MacBook Pro… today I split some wine on it.. so stupid; the backlights of the keyboard got screwed!

    I turned it uoside down over the edge of the bed … I did that by instinct with my brother yelling at me: shut it down!.. so I did

    I cleaned it, kind of let it dried upside down on a towel (to absorb the liquid). Some of the middle lights shine right, but the rest are all opaque, a little wine-color. I think the wine dried but is sticked so rest of the lights seem really low…

    I hope my keyboard, trackpad and power button will cointinue to function well, cuz they feel sticky! Everything else seems to be working ok (battery, hd, etc..)

    I would like to know if I can clean them key by key.. which scares the hell out of me!!… what should I do?

    Help please :)
    Myrna

  • Craig

    Thanks for this, my other half is always spilling drinks, I’ve being lucky to keep my gadgets safe!

    By the way, the picture on Step 6. Whoever that is, they need to cut their finger nails. :)

  • Jesus Bejarano

    what is this thing with developers and wine?

    • http://twosevenzero.com Dave

      For me at least, wine is the perfect coding drink. It makes it so I can only focus on one thing at a time which means I can code for hours with no distractions.

  • Al

    spilled water on my laptop, that did it in, turned it on too soon and seemed to have fried something in the box, luckily the HD was OK and system was resurrected onto another laptop. sent it away to laptop maker but it was too old to find parts for.

    warning to any one who sends a PC off for repair, do NOT leave the original HD in it, especially if it still has valid data on it, when I got mine back it had a totally different HD in it and not the one I shipped with it. so even if you have not checked whether the drive is readable, do NOT include it when sending the PC/laptop away for repair. you probably won’t get it back if you do, and you can say goodby to your info.

    Al

  • http://brianswebdesign.com Brian Temecula

    My mom spilled iced tea on her iMac keyboard, and there was no problems after letting it dry off for a day.

  • Beau

    If i had known this earlier then i would have never reached for my mothers hairdryer! I couldn’t think clearly at the time when i spilled a glass of water over my 13 inch macbook pro… Spilled it on the left side of the keyboard and used the hairdryer to dry it up a little bit and suddenly the keys started melting!

    Missing 11 keys now but the macbook still works… Lucky me!

  • Brad

    Just for the record, I’m STILL laughing at you

  • TheOldFellow

    Computers and people were never intended to mix. This is why they don’t like wine and cider and stuff – it annoys them so much that they can’t enjoy it.

    It was ever thus. I well remember a water-cooled mainframe we had in the 70′s, it didn’t like the cleanroom cleaner, who was rather well endowed in the butt department (jealousy, I suppose) and turned off almost every night when said butt came near its main switch.

  • ijaz khan

    haha.. my laptop sometimes astonish me… i have spilled tea , coke n juices many times on it…never shutted it down neither opened it…just used some tissue or cloth to dry the keys of keyboard while it was switched on…didn botherd about interior… n it still workin never failed =D

  • http://www.rickkippert.com Rick Kippert

    Great article, Jeffrey!

    A few years ago I spilled soy sauce on a MacBook…no luck recovering anything that time!

  • Yannis

    Well, some hair dryers have a “cool air” button option so you don’t risk frying the insides ;)

    Let me know when you release an article about an overheated MacBook (that I bought just few months ago..) and an article about electricity current upon touching it (when plugged on power).

    Cheers

  • http://www.adamcrooker.com AdamTheGr8

    Please make the following addition to the article:

    Macbooks and Candles / don’t mix

    My wife opened the laptop and was working – then a black spot started appearing on the screen. She called me over and asked about it – I folded the monitor down to reveal a candle behind it and a hole melted into the outer casing.

    Still works – the black spot on the monitor has dissipated also.

    I don’t think its covered under apple care though.

  • http://jinxed.com.hr Jinxed

    Don’t know about macs, but I’m quite certain my electronics isn’t “that” sensitive to spills and hits. I just let it dry (though I mostly drink water).

  • http://ctcorbett.com Tyler Corbett

    I’ll admit, I first thought this was going to about some helpful tips on running Wine (which I’ve always had problems with, but maybe that’s just me).

    I’ve heard about flipping the laptop over, so it’s good to hear a more in-depth solution for this. Thanks!

  • Zander Baldwin

    Is it really sad that I instantly thought of WINE, the Windows Emulator for Linux, instead of actual wine?

  • Carlos

    Got mine at Best Buy. Whether or not a good idea is yet to be see. BUT, Best Buy’s 3 year warranty/fix it plan is about the same as the Apple Care and you can pretty much run over you computer with a Mack truck and they will replace it. So spilling any liquid on it, I just need to take out the hard drive take it in and boom new computer.

    I like my Mac and all, but next time, I may just save some money and get a Windows laptop. Apple is getting too big for it’s own britches and starting to eat a hole in my pocket when I buy a new one.

    And yes Apples do get viruses. All of here know this though. The more people buy them the more the lovely hacker community is going to target Macs. They will become the next Windows XP.

    Anyways. Good article, think this applies to any laptop that gets anything spilled on it, not just the MacPros

  • Greg

    Bucket of rice. Someone I know did all the above with the exception of using rubbing alcohol; he drenched the whole laptop in water for minutes, put the laptop upside down in a tub with 5lb of rice and left it for 4-5 days. It was a MBP from 2008.

  • Twig

    Sippy lids for all wine glasses, ordered!

  • Rich

    psh…. i just hosed down my ToughBook! No problems here!

  • Mark

    I’m sure I have read this before how come you have no decided to re-use content? specially pointless content that has no relevance to the sites target content?

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