MacBooks are beautiful devices, and since you are shelling out a pretty penny for them, you will want to keep them clean. This is especially true of the display. Apple’s retina displays are beautiful, and the mini-LED displays on the new MacBook Pros are a sight to behold.
That’s why it’s extra important to clean them regularly. But how should you go about it? Here are three ways to clean a MacBook screen without damaging it.
Before we dive into how to properly clean a MacBook screen, let’s first go over what you shouldn’t do. Firstly, you will want to avoid anything overly abrasive. That includes scouring pads, but it also means anything with paper fibers, so no paper towels or toilet tissue. Any of those have the potential to scratch your screen and cause permanent damage.
You also want to avoid using excessive cleaning fluid, and don’t spray anything directly onto the screen. Lastly, make sure not to get anything into the ports.
With that out of the way, here are three ways to clean your MacBook screen.
This is the simple and cheap way to clean your screen, and it’s the most common way to clean any laptop screen. It’s cheap and gets the job done. Before you get going, though, make sure to power off the MacBook.
Next, take a microfiber or lint-free cloth and polish the screen by moving your hand in circular motions to pick up dirt and dust. Wiping can damage the outer coating on the display and create scratches.
Once all the dirt is free, you can dampen a cloth in distilled or de-ionized water and gently buff out tougher spots. Again, use circular motions, and make sure the cloth isn’t overly wet.
Once you have wiped down the screen, take another smooth cloth and dry the screen.
In these three steps, you should have a far cleaner screen free of any dirt or buildup.
If you want to clean your MacBook screen in one step, you can always get a special spray designed for LCD screens.
Just spritz a microfiber or lint-free cloth with the spray and polish the screen. It may take several passes to get everything if your screen is dirty, but there is no need to swap out wet or dry cloths — it’ll dry just fine on its own without streaks. It’s pretty simple.
Again, just make sure that you never spray the screen directly and avoid over saturating the cloth.
If you want to go the officially-sanctioned route, Apple has its own ungodly expensive “polishing cloth.” It’s a microfiber cloth that costs you $20. It’s also insanely popular, because when you’ve already spent thousands on a MacBook, why not have a branded cleaning cloth to go with it?
Apple recommends just using a non-abrasive and soft cloth to clean their screens, and that’s exactly what this is. If you’re an Apple fan, this is obviously the only way to clean your screen.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.