Wet phone
|

Here’s How to Dry Out Your Phone (the Right Way!)

We may earn a commission from purchases you make after clicking links on this site. Learn more.

It can happen in a moment. Whether your “waterproof” case leaks, an unexpected thunderstorm shows up, or you simply get a bit clumsy in the bathroom after a couple of margaritas, it’s way too easy to end up with a soaked smartphone.

We’ll all been there. I’ve personally managed to drown two smartphones in recent years: once in a tulip field in the Netherlands when the heavens opened, and once on a plane when I knocked a glass of water all over myself… and all over my phone.

This is one situation where a little knowledge and preparation goes a long way, whether you’re in your kitchen or traveling thousands of miles from home. These tips won’t save every phone, but if you’re lucky, they might just save yours.

Here’s what you need to know.

Get Your Phone Out of the Water

Simple, right? Eww, but I dropped it in the toilet! I need to get some rubber gloves on… No. Tough it out. Every second of water exposure reduces the phone’s chances of making it out alive. Wash your hands thoroughly later, but for now, the priority is to get your phone away from any more water.

If it’s raining, wrap it in any material that won’t let in more liquid: a few layers of clothing or a plastic bag work in a pinch. And, obviously, get out of the rain as soon as you can to avoid any further damage.

Turn It Off and Start Removing Things

The case, and any other accessories, need to get out of the way ASAP. Much like in the emergency room when your clothes get cut off instead of carefully removed, seconds matter.

Water and electricity don’t mix, so if the phone was plugged into a charger when water was spilled on it, first turn the charger off at the wall, and then remove the plug from the socket. If the phone didn’t shut down automatically, power it off now and leave it like that.

Now, it’s time to start pulling things apart. For those with an iPhone, you’re limited in what you can remove: it’s pretty much just the SIM card if you’re using one. With Android devices, you may also have a microSD card that can come out, and with a few models, the battery as well.

Basically, anything that can be removed, should be. The more you can open up the phone, the less water will get trapped inside. All of the components mentioned above can also be damaged by water themselves, so taking them out and drying them off just makes sense.

Dry It With a Lint-Free Towel

It’s time to coddle this piece of tech you’ve just abused. If you wear glasses or own a DSLR, you probably have a lint-free towel laying around. If you don’t, a paper towel or washcloth will have to do.

Get rid of as much water as you can. The front and back of the phone should be completely dry by the time you finish. Be sure to get the cloth into the charging port, headphone jack, SIM slot, and any other nooks and crannies you can find.

The more water you can remove yourself, the better. Take your time with this: it’s important, and probably the one thing most likely to determine success or failure.

Find Things to Help Dry Your Phone Out

Now you’ve got rid of the surface water, it’s time to do what you can about the liquid inside your phone. I’ve listed three options here from best to worst: which one you go for will likely depend on how well you’ve planned and where you are when disaster strikes.

Note that whatever approach you take, don’t try to use high heat to speed up the process. You’ll damage your phone even more if you sit it on top of the radiator for hours, or try to blast hot air through it with a hairdryer or fan heater.

Option A [Best]: The “Emergency Kit” Method

PackFreshUSA: Nine Lives Wet Phone Fix – Premium Desiccant - Water Damage Repair – Moisture Removal – Non-Toxic - Rapid Drying Pouch System for Cell Phones and Electronics - 1 Pack Blue

There are a few premade kit options on Amazon, including this Nine Lives version. They all work in a similar way: you put your phone inside, seal the top, leave it for at least 24 hours, and fervently pray to any nearby gods.

The kits use desiccants to absorb moisture and reduce humidity. You know those little bags in food and electronics packaging that say ‘DO NOT EAT’? It’s the same stuff.

If you happen to live somewhere that you can get a kit like this delivered in an hour or two, or are able to find a nearby store where you can go and pick one up right now, then stop reading this and go buy it straight away.

Taking a more proactive approach is always a good idea, though: keeping one of these kits at the back of a cupboard could end up saving you hundreds of dollars on a new phone. If you’re traveling, however, bear in mind you’re unlikely to be able to quickly find this sort of thing in an unfamiliar city.

If you’re hitting the road, do yourself a favor and pick one up before you go. Think of it as a first-aid kit for your tech if you need to justify the minuscule extra weight in your bag. Sadly you can’t cheat by using those little bags of desiccants you’ve been collecting from your Amazon boxes.

Those water-absorbing beads are a one-shot deal: once they’ve been used, they’re basically worthless. Although it’s theoretically possible to reactivate them by baking them in a low-temperature oven for a couple of hours, you need a lot of them and it’s unlikely to be worth the effort.

These kits are by far the best way of drying out your phone, but of course, it relies on you being able to get hold of one straight away, or even better, having been prepared enough to buy one in advance. If that’s not your situation, then read on.

Option B [OK]: The Old “Smartphone in Rice” Method

Phone sitting in rice

Putting your phone into a bowl of uncooked rice is a well-known way of trying to dry it out. It’s definitely not ideal, but if you’re traveling or otherwise don’t have access to the emergency kit mentioned above, it’s better than doing nothing.

That said, a few small details make a big difference in how well this approach will work.

  • Ensure your phone is powered off, taken apart as much as possible, and completely dry on the outside and in the charging port. The more water you can remove yourself, the less work the rice has to do.
  • If you have a container with an airtight lid, use it. Fill it with enough uncooked rice to completely surround the phone on all sides, then put the lid on.
  • If you’ve removed the battery or other components, put them in the rice as well.
  • Put the rice and phone under a desk lamp or similar mild heat source to encourage the evaporation process. Again, don’t sit it on the radiator or blast hot air through it with a heater or hair dryer.
  • Give it as long as possible to dry out. You really want to leave it for around 72 hours, but if that’s genuinely not possible for some reason, at least let it sit overnight. While some phones won’t be revived no matter how long they sit in rice, the longer you give them, the more chance you’ll have.
  • Before reassembling, look carefully to ensure no grains of rice remain inside the phone. Check headphone sockets and charging ports in particular. A wooden or plastic toothpick is the easiest and most available tool: don’t use metal if you can avoid it, since it can damage the electrical contacts.

Option C [Worst]: The “Air it Out” Method

Let’s say the grocery store is closed or you’re in the middle of nowhere, and even a bag of rice is impossible to come by. What then?

Look around the area for a place with air movement. Hopefully you’re indoors by now, or in some other place where there’s little chance of the phone getting wetter. Your main goal at this point is evaporation of whatever liquid is still inside.

A fan is ideal, but even a laptop, cable box, or TV has some exhaust vents. You don’t really want dirty air blowing onto your phone, so give the fan blades or air vents a quick wipe to remove any obvious dust and dirt.

Be sure the phone rests at an angle, with the charging port or SIM card slot pointing downward: water should be flowing out of the device, not pooling inside of it. Put a paper towel or napkin underneath to absorb whatever liquid drains out.

The longer it can air out, the better. Again, at least give it overnight, with a two or three days much better if you can. This isn’t a high-percentage approach, though: if it was me, I’d leave the phone behind and go out looking for a desiccant pouch or bag of rice while I waited.

Get regular updates from the world of travel tech and remote work

News, reviews, recommendations and more, from here and around the web

How to Get Water Out of Your Phone Speaker

Even if you have a water-resistant phone (but especially if you don’t), getting water in the speakers can be a real problem, particularly when it stays there for a long time. You’ll end up with muffled, distorted, or crackling sound at a minimum, and permanent damage to your speakers at worst.

Fortunately, there’s a surprisingly easy fix for this. After you’ve done the usual care tips mentioned above, like drying everything with a lint-free cloth, it’s time to head to the app store. Obviously this only applies when your phone is otherwise working properly: it’s not going to solve other kinds of water damage.

The approach is taken from the Apple Watch, which has an inbuilt way of quickly vibrating the speaker to literally shake the water off. Most smartphones don’t have the same feature, but never fear, there’s an app for that!

For iPhones, grab Sonic V from the App store. Android users, go for Sonic Sound Wave Generator instead. If you’d prefer not to use an app, websites like Fix My Speakers do much the same thing.

Whichever option you go for, the approach is much the same. These tools work by playing a loud, high-frequency sound that makes the speakers vibrate fast enough to disperse water that’s sitting on them.

Simply place your phone on a flat surface, or ideally angled slightly downward, set your volume to maximum, and activate the app or website for a few seconds. With any luck, you’ll see small water droplets coming out of the speaker grill, and end up with crystal-clear sound once more.

The usual caveats apply here: there are no guarantees with a method like this, and even a risk of (further) damaging your speakers. Use at your own risk!

The Moment of Truth

One of the biggest predictors of whether a phone will survive being soaked in water is how long you can dry it out for before trying to power it back up again. I mentioned it earlier but will say it again here: keep it turned off as long as possible. At least 24 hours is the minimum, and try for 48 hours or more if you can.

Don’t hit the power button to “test it out” or “see if it’s fixed yet” before that time. If there’s still water inside, it can easily conduct electricity to places on the circuit board that it’s not meant to go. The end result? A dead phone that could have been saved if you’d waited a while longer.

Once you’ve finally run out of time or patience, though, it’s time to see if you still have a working phone. Reassemble it, cross your fingers, and try to turn it on.

If it doesn’t work, don’t despair quite yet: it’s possible that the battery short-circuited and drained when it got wet. If your device has wireless charging, make sure the back of the phone is completely dry, then put it on the wireless charger for an hour and try again. Wireless power is safer than wired at this point.

If you can’t charge wirelessly, then make sure there’s absolutely no moisture in the USB or Lightning socket, charge the phone from the cable for a few minutes, and see how you go.

If you do see signs of life, go through a quick set of tests. Is the touchscreen or keypad responsive and accurate? Does the screen look normal, with no flickering, lines or discoloration? Can you access Wi-Fi and get cell service? If so, breathe a big sigh of relief: you may well have just dodged a bullet.

I’ll note that these tactics can also work for tablets and laptops, though laptops especially are far less likely to survive more than a mild splash. While phones and tablets only have a few places for water to flow in freely, a laptop is basically a glorified sieve.

If you still have a dead phone at this point, sadly it’s likely to be time for a trip to the nearest repair shop. Depending on which components got damaged and what kind of phone you have, though, repairs aren’t always prohibitive.

After drowning my phone in that tulip field I mentioned earlier, I dried it out under the fan in my hotel room for a day before trying to power it back on. It came back to life, but kept shutting down by itself every few minutes afterward.

After tracking down a tiny phone store in Amsterdam, I managed to get it fixed for under 50 euros, including the cost of a new battery. The water had caused short-circuiting and corrosion, not to mention destroying the battery, but no other damage: I was pretty lucky in the end!

Your mileage will vary wildly, though, both in terms of whether a fix is possible and what it might cost. For non-Apple phones, most repair shops should at least be able to give you an idea of whether there’s any chance of bringing your phone back to life, and at least a rough quote if so.

iPhones are typically more expensive to fix than other models, and while it’s got easier for third-party repair shops to get parts in recent years, there are no guarantees they’ll be in stock. If you’re somewhere where there’s an Apple store or authorized repair agent, use them, even if it costs a bit more.

If it’s too expensive to fix and you find yourself unexpectedly in the market for a new phone, a piece of advice: get one with good water resistance built-in! Look for an IP67 rating or better: this means it will handle being dropped in the toilet or caught in a thunderstorm much better the next time around.


Photo credit: hareluya/Shutterstock.com (wet phone), Mark Ou (phone in rice)

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

25 Comments

  1. Can i dry my phone using a hair dryer?

    Thanks.

    1. You shouldn’t, no. Hair dryers create static electricity, force dust and other particles into the phone, and can be pretty hot if you hold them too close to the device. All in all, it’s a bad idea.

  2. I dropped my phone in water. Took it apart and dried it off. I did use a hair dryer and then put it in rice overnight. It works today.

    1. You’re lucky with the hair dryer, but it’s great that it worked and you have a functioning phone again! 🙂

  3. Avatar Ron Barrow says:

    I accidentally put my phone in the washing machine. It can through a regular wash cycle. I took it apart and wrapped it in a paper towel after 48 hours it works fine.

  4. Avatar Ron Barrow says:

    I also put it in a covered bowl of rice for the 48 hours.

  5. I dropped my iPhone in a lake by a dock in 2 foot of water in seaweed. The kids searched for it and after 30 minutes or so they retrieved it. I took it apart as much was allowed without tech support. I gently tapped out any water and then hung it in front of a portable floor fan and left it for approximately 24 hours. The next day I put it back together and it worked great !!

  6. I use the “keep warm” function of the oven which is 170F. I let the oven get to temp and then turn it off and monitor until the inside temp of the oven gets down to 160F which, supposedly, is the safe temperature for Lithium Ion batteries. Of course the phone is powered off…

  7. What do I do if my phone fell in water along time ago and it still won’t work now after I tried every thing?

    1. It’s time to take it to a repair shop or start looking at replacements, unfortunately. If it hasn’t come back to life by now, it’s probably not going to. The only possible exception would be if it was a phone with a user-replaceable battery — you could try putting in a new one, but even then, it’s not super-likely that’ll fix it.

  8. Avatar Jackie Wells says:

    Very cool website, so helpful. HOPE my phone recovers.

    1. I really hope my phone does too ???

  9. The rice trick isn’t very effective and can result in starch etc getting into the phone. The air it out method is far safer.

    1. Yep, we definitely recommend using a proper desiccant kit as per option A. Since most people don’t have those lying around and may not be able to get hold of one in a hurry, we’ve talked about other sub-optimal alternatives like rice as well. It’s more effective than airing out, but as you say, not necessarily safer.

  10. Avatar Bob Riley says:

    Just take out the cards after drying it in a towel and gently apply the vacuum cleaner on slow to all orifices then start looking for a spudger. A plectrum is fine but never use a knife. Time to join Ifixit!
    Never turn it on until it has been drying for at least 48 hrs in rice/ dessicant.

  11. Note the little bags of desiccants in shoe boxes etc are filled with silica gel. You can reactivate this if you are super careful. Put them in an oven with the lowest heat possible ~100c for about an hour or 2 to get the moisture out of it, then seal them up super tight ready for when you need them. Note you will need to collect a lot for them to work well.
    Or just buy some.

    Hope this helps

  12. thanks alot of information

  13. Avatar Pat Sistrunk says:

    This has been very informative! Thank you.

  14. Avatar Highlandword9 - Tech Enthusiast says:

    Please do not use rice, even if you are in a hurry.
    Air it out for a minimum of 24 hours, 48 is standard, however 72 is ideal.
    The starch and rice particles can get inside your phone and harm the electronics and rice can also get stuck in your charging/headphone ports.
    Air drying your phone is the ideal way if you do not have silica gel packets or other desiccant substances to use.

    1. Avatar Highlandword9 - Tech Enthusiast says:

      Please take out your SIM card too, as moisture can affect it.
      Also, if your phone is a model with a removable battery please take it out as an extra safety measure and leave the phone case off.

      1. You’re repeating what’s in the article, but I guess there’s no harm in reiterating it!

      2. Wife dropped phone down the loo. Not working, dried off, removed all possible parts, wraped in kitchen roll placed in rice, fibgers now crossed.

  15. My phone is on, should I turn it off before taking out the Sim card? Unfortunately, I did test it before the 24 hour mark. It seems to work okay, but I don’t want to harm any more than I already have.

    1. It’s probably a bit late at this point to be honest, but yes, ideally you’d turn your phone off and then remove the SIM card. If it’s working ok and stays that way, you got lucky!

Note that comments are manually approved, so there will be a delay before they appear on the site. Please keep them polite.