My iPhone Got Wet. What Do I Do? Don’t Use Rice!

When your iPhone gets wet, it’s an emergency. We know what to do in other emergency situations, but what most people do when their iPhones get wet is about as effective as throwing water on a grease fire: It causes a lot more harm than good.

The most important thing in any emergency is to be prepared: Know what to do if your iPhone gets wet, and even more importantly, learn the mistakes people make that cause irreparable damage to iPhones that could have been saved.

I got a lot of first-hand experience with wet iPhones when I worked for Apple. Over and over again, I met people who had damaged their own iPhones beyond repair because of the crazy advice they had gotten from a friend.

You’re reading part 1 of a three-part series about what to do to rescue, repair, or replace a wet or water-damaged iPhone. I’ll debunk the myths I’ve heard about how to save a wet iPhone, tell you what absolutely not to do, and explain the best options for rescuing an iPhone that may have water damage.

Step 1: Remove All Water From The Outside Of Your iPhone

The first thing to do if your iPhone gets wet is to remove as much water as possible from the outside of your iPhone. Don’t turn it off – we’re in triage mode now.

Your best bet is a microfiber cloth, but if you don’t have one of those lying around (and you probably won’t), the next thing you’ll reach for will probably be a tissue. Warning: This is where we’ll see the first all-too-common mistake people make when their iPhone gets wet.

Mistake #1: The Broken-Apart Tissue Problem

You’ll want to use something that’s very absorbent when you dry your iPhone, but absolutely not something that might break apart or leave residue inside. Yes, tissues are absorbent, but they have a nasty habit of breaking apart when they come into contact with water.

What Could Go Wrong?

If you’re attempting to remove water from your headphone jack and part of the tissue breaks off, now you’re got two problems: A wet iPhone and a headphone jack with a wet tissue stuck inside.

Unless you’ve had experience with headphone jacks on iPhones, you would not believe how difficult it is to get anything out of there without damaging the jack itself.

Tissues have a second strike against them: They tend to leave dust or residue inside of your iPhone. Don’t use a tissue with aloe: In this case, the cheaper the tissue, the better. If you can rip a regular tissue and dust doesn’t come out of it, it’s probably OK to use.

How To Do It Right

If you do use a tissue, be very gentle, especially when cleaning the charging port and headphone jack. Just stick the tissue in, let it absorb the liquid, and gently remove it. Don’t twist it – the edges inside of the headphone jack can cause the tissue to break apart.

On the next page, we’ll deal with the deadliest mistake people make while trying to save their wet iPhone. Read on to find out how trying to dry your iPhone using rice can cause irreperable damage to your iPhone.

Mistake #2: Rice. Whatever You Do, Don’t Use Rice To Dry Out Your iPhone.

It’s common knowledge that when your cell phone gets wet, you stick it in a bag of rice. Somehow, this rice is supposed to magically absorb water on the inside of your iPhone and bring it back to life. I cannot stress enough how absolutely wrong this is.

Time and again, customers would come to me at Apple with their iPhone in a bag of rice and ask me why it wasn’t working. I’d take it in back, open it up, and the inside of the phone would still be wet. Rice has no magical powers to remove water from far-away places.

I don’t know where the rice myth came from, but it’s been around for as long as I can remember. Back in the day of flip phones, we could take off the back, take out the battery, and get rice really close to the liquid inside our phone. Personally, I don’t believe this ever had much of an effect. iPhones are much more advanced and tightly enclosed than the “dumb phones” we used to carry around.

“But Rice Can’t Hurt My iPhone, Right? Why Don’t I Just Give It A Try…”

Again, this is absolutely wrong. Sticking your iPhone in a bag of rice can cause all sorts of problems, and in some cases, rice can ruin an iPhone that might have been saved. Here’s why:

At Apple, a customer would come in with one of two problems totally unrelated to water-damage: Their headphone jack wasn’t working anymore or their iPhone wouldn’t charge. I’d shine my little flashlight inside the headphone jack or charging port, and sure enough, a piece of rice would be stuck inside.

Simple to get out, right? Wrong. Often times, it wasn’t a full piece that would become lodged inside the iPhone, but a small fragment that worked its way into the headphone jack or charging port.

Let’s Do An Experiment

Take a look at the charging port on your iPhone. How big is it? That’s right: It’s about the size of a small grain of rice. Now, take a look at the headphone jack on your iPhone. How big is it? That’s right: Just big enough for a small piece of rice to get stuck inside.

Can’t I Just Remove The Piece Of Rice?

In many cases, it’s impossible to remove rice from an iPhone without damaging other components. Rice can become really, really stuck inside an iPhone. By the time I saw a customer’s phone, in many cases the damage had already been done. And Apple doesn’t cover those types of repairs: Your iPhone’s warranty does not cover external objects that get stuck inside your iPhone.

As a former Apple tech, I plead with you: Don’t stick your iPhone in a bag of rice.

On the next page, we’ll talk about what can actually work to dry out the inside of your iPhone and how to begin your very own iPhone emergency kit, just in case the unthinkable happens.

Step 2: Use A Real Desiccant To Dry Your iPhone (If You Have One)

After people realize how bad the rice idea is, they begin to wonder, “Isn’t there anything that can dry out the inside of my iPhone?”

Yes, there is! A substance that produce a state of dryness in nearby objects is called a desiccant. I believe the rice myth came about from the mistaken belief that rice itself is an effective desiccant. Rice might work in a salt shaker, but it certainly doesn’t work for an iPhone.

You’ve seen desiccants before and you’ve thrown them away. They come in the packages of all sorts of everyday things that need to stay dry: Vitamins, pill bottles, electronics, clothes, and a variety of other common items ship with tiny little packets (sometimes called “freshness packets”) containing desiccants. They don’t ship products with little bags of rice.

Keep Desiccants Handy! Your iPhone’s Life May Depend On It.

This may, perhaps, be the most important thing you gain from this article. From now on, every time you receive a product that contains a desiccant packet, place it inside a ziplock bag that you keep handy. This is the beginning of your iPhone emergency kit. Benjamin Franklin’s phrase rings true here: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

Step 3: Leave Your iPhone Alone.

I know it’s hard to do nothing, but in this case, it’s the best thing you can do. If you have a ziplock bag containing desiccants, leave your iPhone flat on the counter and let the desiccants do their job. Don’t turn it off – let the battery run out by itself.

But Shouldn’t I Turn It Off?

If your wet iPhone is in good enough shape that you could turn it off, leaving it alone is the best thing you can do. Tilting or pressing buttons on your iPhone can cause water inside your phone to move around, and that could mean the difference between rescuing and replacing your iPhone.

How Long Should I Leave My iPhone Alone?

Each situation is different, so it’s impossible to say exactly how long to allow your iPhone to sit before you attempt to turn it back on. As a general rule of thumb, leave your iPhone alone overnight and reassess the damage in the morning.

It’s true that a completely water-logged iPhone won’t dry out overnight, but if your iPhone is that wet it’s probably too far gone.

On the last page of this article, I’ll tell you the safest way to revive a wet iPhone and explain the next steps to take to assess the extent of the damage.

Step 4: Turn It On and Assess The Damage

You’ve left your iPhone alone overnight and it’s time to determine whether or not your iPhone has been damaged.

Before you attempt to do anything else, double-check the outside of your iPhone to make sure it’s still absolutely dry. If there’s any liquid at all, follow the suggestions in Step One to dry the outside of your iPhone without accidentally causing any additional damage.

Next, plug your iPhone into the charger and wait for it to turn on. If your battery is completely dead, it’s normal for your iPhone to take several minutes to turn on. However, you should still see the battery icon appear on the screen.

It will be very apparent if there’s damage to the display, but often times the smaller problems water-damage can cause aren’t that easy to recognize, at least at first. In part two of this series, we’ll talk about how to assess the damage and the best repair options for each of the main components of your iPhone.

If your iPhone is completely dead with a black screen and no signs of life, a last-ditch effort is to try a hard reset. We’re hoping that it’s just the software that’s crashed. It’s a longshot, but it’s worth a try.

To perform a hard reset on your iPhone, hold down both the power button and Home button until the Apple logo appears on the display. Doing a hard reset on an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus is a little bit different. Instead of holding the Home button and power button, press and hold the volume down button and power button at the same time. Release them both after about 20 seconds, or when you see the Apple logo pop up on your iPhone’s screen.

If your iPhone still shows no signs of life, well, that’s what we’ll discuss in this article. Don’t despair: There are plenty of options when it comes to replacing a water-damaged iPhone, and a lot of them probably don’t cost as much as you think.

Wrapping It Up

Why do people do such crazy things when their iPhones get wet? It’s because of the massive amount of misinformation on the internet and the crazy theories we hear from our friends.

Being prepared can be the difference between life and death in an emergency situation, and it’s the same with the life of your iPhone (albeit not as important). I hope this article has given you the confidence that you’ll know exactly what to do if your iPhone ever gets wet. Tell your friends, too. As someone wise once said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”