How To Safely Clean Your Nintendo Switch And Joy-Cons

Natsia27/Shutterstock

Modern electronics are always changing, improving, and even innovating, but there’s one thing many of them still haven’t found a fix for: day-to-day dirt. It doesn’t help that humans, by our very nature, aren’t perfectly clean creatures. Sure we wash our hands, wash laundry, take showers, and so on, but since we’re all mammals composed of organic matter we also produce oil from our skin. Between years of unavoidable oily buildup and regular old dust particles (and the odd mishap), your regularly-used gadgets can and will get dirty.

Your Nintendo Switch and its Joy-Con controllers are no exception. If you play in handheld mode often, chances are good that you’ll begin to see that telltale buildup that most game players have gotten used to over the decades. If you primarily play in docked mode with a different controller, on the other hand, you likely won’t have much (if any) oily buildup content, but the console is far more susceptible to gathering dust since it isn’t being moved often.

Fortunately, cleaning both your Switch console and Joy-Cons is a relatively simple process. And as long as you’re careful, and don’t deviate from Nintendo‘s recommended instructions, you won’t have to worry about damaging the hardwareeither.

Esolex/Getty Images

A big thing to remember with cleaning your Switch (or any electronics, really) is to never pour water or cleaning solutions onto it directly and never submerge your devices in water or cleaner. Using an appropriate applicator (i.e., wipe, cloth, etc.) is much safer as it uses far less liquid and gives you much more control over where said liquid goes.

1. Get a hold of a clean cloth. This can be a clean rag or soft screen wipe. Paper towels or napkins will also work so long as you aren’t wiping off the screen, as they’re more abrasive and could potentially create scratches.
2. Make sure the Switch and Joy-Cons are powered down completely (i.e., not just in Sleep Mode), and unplugged if applicable.
3. Dampen the cloth with water, then wring out the excess. If it’s too wet, the excess moisture could get inside the housing — or at least take longer to dry.
4. Gently wipe the surface of your Switch or Joy-Cons with the damp cloth. Rinse and wring out the cloth, then repeat as needed.
5. Wait for the surfaces to dry completely before turning anything back on. Similarly, wait until the Switch is dry before putting it back in its dock.

In the event that you need to disinfect your Switch or Joy-Cons rather than simply clean their surfaces, Nintendo suggests following the same steps as above — only using a “consumer-grade disinfectant” with no more than 70 percent alcohol instead of water.