I use a toothpick.
Alternatively, just grab a free toothpick from a restaurant and use that to clean the port.
Toothpicks are WAY too thick. A sewing needle did the job for me though
I use a twist-tie. Like the one you find on a bag of bread or on a new USB cable. Strip off the “insulation” and bend it into a little hook.
I wouldn’t use metal to clean it. A sewing needle is surely hard enough to scratch the coating on the pins. Plastic or wood would be less destructive for repeated use.
The old Reddit trope
The real LPT is in the comments
Do the same with your butthole. Thank me later
Genuine curious question (assuming you are from the west): Why do you guys use toilet paper to clean your butt instead of a jet spray like we do in the east?
Jet spray. Toilet paper is just for drying off afterwards. Or dressing like a mummy
Not my precious charging port dust bunnies! I once had one that could’ve easily won the fat dust bunny contest
Wireless chargers as your bedside charger will also reduce wear on your charge port so if thats the weak point of your phone that will help it last longer
Hey thanks for all the tips in the comments, I’ve got these brand new stiff-ish cleaning brushes and this one worked really well to clean out my charging port and now there’s no more beach sand grinding noise when I shove my cable into the charging port.
You don’t want to be too rough on it. There’s electrical contacts that can get blocked by dust, lint, and crap, so cleaning helps, but the contacts themselves aren’t that thick, so you don’t want to wear them down too much while cleaning. A cleaning solution helps loosen up everything with less force and a softer brush/pad is less likely to knock bits of contact off.
So just be careful because that brush might be like blowing in nintendo cartridges (clearing dust but leaving saliva specs that would wear the contacts), where it helps in the short term but makes things worse in the long term (resulting in more blowing and an acceleration of the process).
a simple sewing needle does the job
I would not use metal simply because its hardness is going to be similar or higher than the hardness of the contacts themselves, which means there’s a chance it could scratch or break the contact entirely.
I use a toothpick as the metal could potentially short something
A 1¢ toothpick works 99% of the time.
Who’s wasting money on 1 cent toothpicks?
LOL, that’s the value of them—not the price of them.
YSK that OP is now mad at wasting $9.99
People don’t try cleaning their charging port before buying a new device? Thats crazy. I really have a hard time believing people don’t try cleaning before buying a new device.
Cheese and rice theres a lot of responses jumping to accusations of people too lazy but I’ve never heard someone too lazy to clean a phone port for $1000 savings.
100% of the people im surrounded by in my family/friends would be to afraid of breaking it beyond trade in value towards the new phone. My case was extreme but since the screens got better id have to guess charging issues is up there for one of the biggest reasons people trade their phones in.
They just need an excuse to buy a new phone.
Some people are just absurdly lazy.
Also what kind of kit does op have? A sim card ejector, a metal brush, a q tip thing, half a zip tie, and some adhesive things? Any thin plastic shim will work perfectly, and sometimes even a stiff plastic bristle brush works well.
Not all are lazy, some just don’t know.
My in-laws didn’t clean the dust out of their PC for almost a decade because when they purchased it, no one told them to clean the filter on the front.
I don’t think plate manufacturers have to tell you to do the dishes. Everything needs cleaning, how do people not know this?
He said “some people,” not “all people.”
I wouldn’t put anything conductive in there.
Wood toothpicks worked great on lightning ports, usbc is a little trickier and more fragile so I use a plastic spudger from an old screen replacement kit.
Most people buy a new cell phone long before the charger stops working.
I’m weird. I’ve had my cell phone since 2020. But MOST people buy one every 2-3 years. Just because the newest latest and greatest just came out.
My 5 year old phone still has no issue charging. And when the battery starts dying, MY battery is user replaceable.
Don’t believe this person, they’ve clearly lost their mind.
Sounds like you haven’t met very many people.
I’d believe it, especially with all the propaganda from big corporations and the fomo they push with new technology. Looking at Apple and their fucking yearly phone cycles.
Don’t forget to consume more! Buy two just in case! Consume! CONSUME!!!
I mean, it’s one phone, paper_moon. What could it cost? $1000?
I replaced a damaged USB C port (module) and degraded battery instead of replacing the whole device.
Those people must have a lot of disposable income.
I will admit, this makes sense, up to a point. I have 2 pixel 4a’s just sitting in a drawer because the screens got damaged, showing just a black screen. And it was the same price or cheaper to buy another used phone than buy just the screen for it, $120+ in most cases on eBay, when i was looking. So I bought another, newer phone instead of fixing the device, for around the same price.
That’s one reason why we really need right to repair. A screen shouldn’t be the same price as the entire device.
i found out weed smokers regularly use a glass pipe until it’s clogged and then just throw it away….
also, if you go dumpster diving around the first of the month you can find trash bags full of useful things that people abandon and landlords throw out.Lol this one is truly unbelievable to me. Its glass! Soak it in soapy water, vinegar or bleach, for gods sake…
it’s true… i’ve found them like that and my friend told me that’s why….
also i’m in california and everyone smokes weed and glass pipes are cheap and everywhere.
i really hate the “disposable” usb-c rechargeable vapes that can’t be refillable by law….
I have a cheap pack of plastic Walgreens tooth picks that are perfect for this. My phone case has a rubber cover for the port so I don’t have to do this often.
I see seven things in that photo. Please explain what each one is and what they do.
The two butt plugs should be self explanatory
Instructions unclear. Phone is now stuck. Please advise.
The top two stick to the back of the phone and provide a rubber cover for the USB c port. Everything else either scrapes away debris or wipes the port clean with isopropyl alcohol. Bottom right appears to be fashioned from a zip tie and probably didn’t come in the kit.
As an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure I recommend those tiny rubber stoppers you see in the photo. They have a peel and stick part that goes under your case which retains the plug on a strip of rubber. That strip might wear out in a few years and rip, but they cost almost nothing to replace (and in fact come in packs).
Phones used to have these things built in, then they stopped in the smartphone era because they didn’t look as sleek and futuristic I guess. Now, if you have a case, it once again makes hardly any difference to the appearance.
That was also when a single charge lasted for days or a week. Now we use our phones too much and multiple charges a day isn’t uncommon for people. I couldn’t imagine having to remove a little plug to charge my phone as often as I do.
If we had Atari cartridges in 2025 kids would be buying kits to clean them and blow into them.
The specs of saliva that go along with blowing corrode the contacts over time, so it is actually better to find an alternative with a soft brush and non/less-acidic cleaning solution.
Nintendo sold cartridge cleaning kits in the 90s (maybe even the 80s).
No one bought those. By the time any corrosion occured, you mastered the game.
By all means try a tooth pick and pure alcohol, if that doesn’t work a professional might get you set straight.
Repair shops can do a better job cleaning than a home option. I had a data and charge problem, bought a kit and tried 3x times; it didn’t work . Bought new cables just in case that was the issue. Brought it in for repair fully expecting to pay for a port repair. Repair shop did a through cleaning charged me $15 and sent me on my way with everything working.
Please, not just any alcohol. Go with isopropanol, ethanol or methanol.
Shit. I used Baileys. Is that bad?
Gotta be careful as well with USB-C ports. I managed to break off the middle section while cleaning a couple of times. Not a good thing, luckily phone battery was already dying at the time.
My problem is that my battery case has stopped charging along with my phone. Phone only charges with high wattage chargers, and phone case only charges with low wattage ones. Still get like 3 days charge on the case, but now takes like 16 hours to fully charge. Also, taking the phone case off so much eventually opened the back of my S20fe. Fixed that with S7000.
Cleaning can still help if it only slow charges (if you mean it used to be able to use high wattage ones).
Gunk prevents a strong connection, which can mess with the handshake. Charger will say, “yeah, I can fast charge, check out these amps!” but not all of it gets through and the case will decide the charger is a liar and just go with slow charging. Don’t assume that something getting through at all means the connection is fine because USB has fallback options when conditions are sub-optimal.
