Next time you drop your iPhone in the toilet, inadvertently take it swimming, expose it to a downpour, or otherwise trigger the liquid detection sensor, don’t reach for the nearest bag of rice.

First, power it off. Then, find a local repair shop (if you’re in the Berkeley area, I recommend Apple & Mac Solutions) or be prepared take apart your device and get that water out fast before it corrodes the parts inside.

In one of the first editions of Mac Mondays, Clean My Mac, I wrote about using just water to clean the outside of a computer. That remains my recommendation. However, the inside is a whole different story.

Rice

A bag of rice is not an effective method to remove liquid from an electronic device. Not only is rice inefficient at drawing moisture away from other materials, particles of rice can get trapped and result in damage to the device. So says a recently published Apple support article on the topic.

In 2015, The Verge published extensive research on the history of such colloquial rice wisdom. The oldest among its references was a 1946 article in Popular Photography indicating that rice could serve as a substitute to silica gel desiccant for warding off rust and fungus on camera equipment.

Also, while it’s true that rice can absorb moisture, it does not absorb the minerals in water that enable water to conduct electricity and corrode metals in the first place. So, really, skip the rice.

Air

iFixit has written about this as well. Once upon a time, its testing, which also included rice and silica gel packets, concluded that placing a powered-off device on a shelf in open air was the best way to allow it to dry.

Contrarians to this recommendation argue that one might be more tempted to pick up a device and power it on midway through the drying process, compared to keeping it out-of-sight, out-of-mind in a bag of rice. One might even feel that putting a device in rice is an intentional activity and therefore more likely to work, as opposed to doing nothing.

Nonetheless, open air is a slow procedure for evaporating water and still won’t remove the minerals that are left behind.

Alcohol

In iFixit’s followup research, summarized in Rice Is for Dinner, Not Repair, it learned from Jessa Jones, owner of iPad Rehab, that alcohol is the most effective substance to remove water from an electronic device.

Jessa explains this truth on iFixit’s wiki. At best, the method requires disassembling a device and soaking parts in 90%+ isopropyl alcohol. iFixit details the steps in its iPhone Liquid Damage Repair guide.

Next time you drop your iPhone in the toilet, inadvertently take it swimming, expose it to a downpour, or otherwise trigger the liquid detection sensor, don’t reach for the nearest bag of rice.

First, power it off. Then, find a local repair shop (if you’re in the Berkeley area, I recommend Apple & Mac Solutions) or be prepared take apart your device and get that water out fast before it corrodes the parts inside.