How often do you clean the interior of your MacBook Pro for dust?

[DeepSix]

My Apple Store tech says MBP users should be cleaning the dust from inside the laptop once a week or once a month at the worst. He says dust will eventually form and built up like cotton balls if this maintenance is left for too long (like a year).

For anyone who has had these laptops for years, can anyone confirm how much dust builds up inside these laptops over time?

The fan on the M4 Pros almost never run. Even when doing some video rendering, it may not spin up the fans. And I dont use my laptop on the carpet or in bed blocking all the vents. So I shouldn't have much dust built in I would think?

 

[hovscorpion12]

UMMM. My M3 Max that's been going 2-years. 😭

 

[russell_314]

Once every never. Just take a can of air and dust the vents. Be careful not to overdo it and over speed the fans

 

[Nada Ting]

You should clean the keyboard if you feel an unusual response when you hit a key, like a missing letter in a word or what feels like a slow or stiff response to a keystroke. Don't blow air into the keyboard tho, it just drives the debris deeper into the machine and over time will cause cooling issues or worse. I use a keyboard vacuum and when I clean its filter I'm always surprised at how much skin and litter it pulls out. Microscopic I know, but it builds up over time.

 

[GMShadow]

I took in my 2019 16" for service in 2023 to get the lid re-aligned (originally thought it would need to be replaced but the tech was able to just reset the hinge mounting). He said he cleaned it out but it wasn't particularly dirty to begin with. That's with daily use in a lot of environments.

 

[t0rqx]

3 times a day.

 

[Nermal]

I probably go a few years between cleans. I pulled my ~3-year-old iMac to bits about a year ago and was astounded by the amount of dust in there. It felt like a new machine afterwards, with the fans being so much quieter and performance being better (no throttling). My MBP is probably overdue.

With the iMac, I learned that there's a mesh grate 2-3 cm above the bottom intake vents, and all the dust had collected there. Next time I'll probably try to hook it all out using a bent paperclip as it's likely to be much less hassle than taking the screen off, and I know that the grate will prevent damage to any of the actual electronics.

 

[iSuzan]

Still using my M1 Pro MBP. Work laptop so using it 8-10 hrs 4 days a week.
Never cleaned dust inside the machine. Wipe the screen with the Apple cloth (yes, hehe) and the keyboard before I close the lid. That‘s it.

Beside the shiny keys it looks nearly like new and everything works like on the 1st day.

If you are not in a super dirty and dusty environment I would not worry at all.

 

[adrianlondon]

Three years ago I opened my 2013 15" MBP to disconnect the (broken) display so that it would boot directly to whatever is connected to the HDMI socket.

The (at the time) 9 year old laptop wasn't dusty inside.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

Once a week is batsh*t, to the point I think they were messing with you. Every year is good.

 

[GrassShark]

My Apple Store tech says MBP users should be cleaning the dust from inside the laptop once a week or once a month at the worst. He says dust will eventually form and built up like cotton balls if this maintenance is left for too long (like a year).

For anyone who has had these laptops for years, can anyone confirm how much dust builds up inside these laptops over time?

The fan on the M4 Pros almost never run. Even when doing some video rendering, it may not spin up the fans. And I dont use my laptop on the carpet or in bed blocking all the vents. So I shouldn't have much dust built in I would think?

Are you sure they weren't meaning inside as in the screen/hinge/keyboard area? As far as I know Apple doesn't really even want users opening their laptops up in the first place.

 

[JSRinUK]

3 times a day.

I clean my MBP so often that I don’t have time left in the day to actually use it as a MacBook. 🤣

(No, I don’t.)

I don’t think I’ve ever cleaned the inside of any laptop I’ve ever had over the last 25+ years. I still have most of them. And they still work. Even my old Dell Inspiron 7500 that’s stuck on Windows 98.

 

[IJustWannaTalk]

Not once. Ever. Not for any laptop I've ever owned.

 

[Analog Kid]

Never. I've never cleaned inside a laptop... On some desktops, I'll hold the vacuum hose to the vents and try to suck out what I can, but that's maybe every few years when it looks like there's a small but fluffy rodent pressed against the fan grate.

 

[williamofockham]

I've got a MacBook Pro mid 2010 , I've cleaned it each time I've changed the battery. as for dust balls none, but some dust, hair, etc on the inlet grill. I suppose it depends on how you use it, and where you use it, and how you transport it.

 

[grammatica]

Never LMAO

 

[Petite messe solennelle]

Never, as I trade mine in every year when the new models are available.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Inside? Like the interior body where the fans are? Hahaha

Yea, I did this when I was a teenager with a 486 desktop and wanted a reason to take it apart and fiddle. Now I'll clean it out if I need to open it for any reason, new battery, etc., otherwise, never. I opened my 2012 MBP once, that I owned for almost a decade, to swap out the dvd drive for a secondary SSD, and cleaned it out and re-applied heat-sink compound. That was it, and it wasn't all that dusty.

 

[Happy_John]

Once a year, roughly, if it's a stationary machine. Best not to place it somewhere where it's more likely dust will build up, e.g., on the floor under your desk. You probably won't do this with a laptop, but people can be weird sometimes.

If you smoke or have cats, you're going to have a lot more dust and gunk, but, even then, cleaning out a machine more than once a year is overly excessive.

 

[Happy_John]

My Apple Store tech says MBP users should be cleaning the dust from inside the laptop once a week or once a month at the worst. He says dust will eventually form and built up like cotton balls if this maintenance is left for too long (like a year).

For anyone who has had these laptops for years, can anyone confirm how much dust builds up inside these laptops over time?

The fan on the M4 Pros almost never run. Even when doing some video rendering, it may not spin up the fans. And I dont use my laptop on the carpet or in bed blocking all the vents. So I shouldn't have much dust built in I would think?

The tech is either a lunatic or he's winding you up. Opening and closing the case of a MBP once a week is unnecessary and it vastly increases the risk of damaging the internals while doing so.

 

[cogzero]

You're being given bad advice, unless you live in a pillow factory or a grain silo.

 

[leifp]

Never. Approximately never. There was that one time when I decided to bathe my 17” MBPro in an almost perfectly full and perfectly dumped pint of beer (almost none missed!) and for its resuscitation efforts, I removed the case to give it a rubbing alcohol bath and to pat down its bum before leaving it to air dry. Ah, good times… whenever it got hot that laptop wafted out some good vibes!

Other than that, including that (technically), I have never opened a piece of tech expressly to blast dust out.

 

[DENNISAMCAFEE]

My Apple Store tech says MBP users should be cleaning the dust from inside the laptop once a week or once a month at the worst. He says dust will eventually form and built up like cotton balls if this maintenance is left for too long (like a year).

For anyone who has had these laptops for years, can anyone confirm how much dust builds up inside these laptops over time?

The fan on the M4 Pros almost never run. Even when doing some video rendering, it may not spin up the fans. And I dont use my laptop on the carpet or in bed blocking all the vents. So I shouldn't have much dust built in I would think?

Agree with posts that say you have been given bad advise. Have a 2013 MacBook Pro that runs like a Swiss watch & has never been cleaned on the inside.

 

[aries81]

My Apple Store tech says MBP users should be cleaning the dust from inside the laptop once a week or once a month at the worst. He says dust will eventually form and built up like cotton balls if this maintenance is left for too long (like a year).

For anyone who has had these laptops for years, can anyone confirm how much dust builds up inside these laptops over time?

The fan on the M4 Pros almost never run. Even when doing some video rendering, it may not spin up the fans. And I dont use my laptop on the carpet or in bed blocking all the vents. So I shouldn't have much dust built in I would think?

perhaps they meant opening up the lid and doing a quick wipe with a dry cloth? I doubt that many people actually own pentalobe screwdrivers to open up anything fancy.

 

[chrono1081]

My Apple Store tech says MBP users should be cleaning the dust from inside the laptop once a week or once a month at the worst. He says dust will eventually form and built up like cotton balls if this maintenance is left for too long (like a year).

For anyone who has had these laptops for years, can anyone confirm how much dust builds up inside these laptops over time?

The fan on the M4 Pros almost never run. Even when doing some video rendering, it may not spin up the fans. And I dont use my laptop on the carpet or in bed blocking all the vents. So I shouldn't have much dust built in I would think?

He's obviously new because that advice is utter BS. Laptops don't get nearly the dust towers do (and towers, even in dusty environments, are usually fine for a few months. I used to service computers in Iraq).

I honestly never really blow out my laptops, when I do open them even after years there's almost no dust in them.