How to Care for a Computer Mouse

In the old days, mouse cleaning was a pain. Mice managed to pick up every stay crumb and speck of dust on your desk. When it came time to clean you needed toothpicks, tweezers and all sorts of other things to clean them out. With optical mice, things have become much easier and you can clean your mouse in just a few minutes.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Ball Mice

1. Remove the ball from the mouse. Most mice have a small turning cover around the ball, one quarter turn and it comes right out.

2. Rub down the mouse ball with an alcohol wipe, hopefully removing the majority of its built up grime.

3. Pick the dirt off the rollers inside the mouse with a pair of tweezers.

4. Scrape any small bits of gunk out with a toothpick; at the end of this step all of the rollers and wheels should be clean.

5. Spray the inside of your mouse with canned air, blowing out any of the bits that fell into the casing in the last few steps.

6. Wipe down the exterior of the mouse with an alcohol wipe.

Optical Mice

7. Check the feet of the mouse for any sticky residue and remove it with your fingernail.

8. Place a small amount of alcohol on the end of a q-tip and clean out the optical port.

9. Wipe down the exterior of the mouse with an alcohol wipe.

Tips & Warnings

• Since you're probably going to be pushing the mouse's buttons during the process you should turn off the computer, unplug the mouse or bring up a screen where you can't accidentally click something.