I think I wrote a while ago about the remodeled Apple Keyboard, which is really one of the most wonderful keyboards I’ve ever used, but it does have one really annoying downside: there seems to be no obvious way to really clean the keys. With Apple’s older keyboards you could easily pop off the keys, clean them with soap and water, and then pop them back on once they’re all nice and dry. The new, “low-profile” keys, however, don’t come off nearly as easily, making cleaning much more difficult.

Well, I think I’ve found a pretty nice solution:

Yup, that’s right, one of those Pentel Clic Erasers.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Get nasty keyboard.

For reference, here’s my dirty MacBook keyboard. Note how bad the O and P keys look.

Step 2: Erase the dirt right off a key.

See the difference between the O and the P now. It looks unreal, but trust me, it’s not, and it took a whole 4 seconds to do.

Step 3: Repeat with all keys.

This is the after picture. The whole thing takes maybe a minute or two to do.

Step 4: Turn the keyboard upside down and spray it with some compressed air to get rid of any remaining eraser shavings.

That’s it.

This would probably work with any eraser, but the nice thing about the Clic Erasers are that they’re small enough to get the keyboard surface between the keys, if you’re hella OCD like I am.

The only concern you might have is that, somehow, eraser shavings might get under the keys or something. Honestly, I’m not sure, given the geometry involved, that it’s even possible for any shavings to wiggle their way down there, and I’ve cleaned two keyboards this way (MacBook and desktop keyboard) with absolutely no problems. Besides, it seems a lot safer than cleaning with any kind of liquid.

Have fun erasing your way to a cleaner keyboard (it’s minutes of entertainment)!