You Should Know

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.

A 1¢ toothpick works 99% of the time.

Yeah... be incredibly careful about shoving something with metal bristles into your charging port.

Maybe once a year I get a bit of gunk in my port (hey-oh!). Samsung (presumably all usb c androids?) are generally really good about losing their shit and yelling at you to remove the cable immediately and clean your port.

So when I get home? I just get one of my flossers (for teeth) that tend to have a cheap plastic toothpick attached to it. Works perfect, no liquids, and very minimal risk of damaging the port.

No need to waste money on a "kit" for such a basic task.

And if that doesn't work, take it to a shop to replace the port.

Don't thow out a perfectly good phone just because the port stops working..

10 USD??? I justo walk into a phone repair shop and ask them if they can clean it. they do it in under a minute for free

I used to shock and amaze people when I'd pull out half a cottonballs worth of pocket lint and get their phones working again.

And don't waste $10 on a kit. A toothpick and canned air does everything you need.

Alternatively, just grab a free toothpick from a restaurant and use that to clean the port.

a simple sewing needle does the job

I've been using magnetic USB cables and adapters on my devices for years. I occasionally need to clean their connection, but otherwise they work well. Found one I liked and purchased a bunch of them. Now the car, house, office, etc. all have one of the magnetic cables nearby.

They charge a little slower, but that's better for my battery long-term anyway.

At the very least get a toothpick and get the lint out. Like, come on Jamal, there's a reason your charging cable doesn't go all the way in anymore.

I use the pick side from one of those dental flossers to clean mine. Works great and easy to replace.

You could also set up wireless charging and put the phone down for a bit.

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.

My phone is a Galaxy Z-Fold5, not new but not old enough for me to replace since the Fold7 just shipped.

Was hell bent sure the issue causing my phone to begin not accepting charging cables* was something Samsung was doing with their software updates. (*It charged fine with contactless chargers if youre ok with it taking 10-14 hours to charge)

It was too much of a coincidence that the phone charged 100% fine with any and all cables. Download a software update (not android update, this was samsung delivered update) phone doesnt charge with a cable after that for 2-3 weeks. Im T1Diabetic who uses wifi connected glucose monitor, so it fuckin drains battery juice 24/7 with very little setting controls to mitigate it. So I spent 2-3 weeks battling with it to charge on charging pads.

Didn't change a thing with what I was doing and BAM another Samsung update, weirdly close to the last update and fuck me running if the phone didnt start charging very very tenderly with charging cables again.

Eventually figured fuck it, if its hard to do the phone is broke if its easy enough to do then maybe it will help and bought a pack of adhesive rubber type C port plugs from Amazon that came with a super cheap cleaning kit. It wasnt anything special. It came with the picture pointed and spaded q-tips, a flexible wire brush, then I used my own zip tie that I shaped, a sim card tool and a cloth for cleaning glasses. AND WENT TO FUCKING TOWN.

Everytime you plug in your charger to your phone, any dust that is in there is getting buttfucked into the back of the phone's charging port like its a muzzleloaded gunpowder. Lol a bit hyperbplic but you get the point.

Finished cleaning the port. Plugged it in. First fuckin try, no fighting it, no switching chargers, no "charging but not fast charging" bullshit, no more voids in guessing my blood sugar, no more watching tv holding charger into phone. AND $1,000+ THAT IS STILL IN MY FUCKING ACCOUNT.

I gotta assume this is the #1 driver for phones needing to be replaced ever since the screens stopped shattering everytime you sneezed. The adhesive rubber plug is amazing. It is hardly noticeable and stays in the charging port even with my opening and closing of screens. It never pops out.

Honestly the smartest $10 I think I may have ever spent.

TLDR: Phone not charging? Buy $10 type C cleaning kit from amazon, watch 5min video on tips for cleaning, clean charging port for night and day results. Not difficult, very hard to fuck up your phone unless you jackhammer the port cleaning it. Saves you the cost of a new phone.

And obviously this isnt a fix all for all charging issues.

An old toothbrush and isopropyl alcohol works fine.

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.

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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.

Literally just use one of those toothpick flosser things. The end is usually a plastic pick, which is perfect.

I always use wireless charging, and have a silicone plug in my phone's USB port to stop dirt getting in there. Very similar to these: https://a.co/d/aFWuSI3 (just standalone plugs with no adhesive). I see some in the photo with adhesive to stick them to the phone, but that seems like it'd look ugly.

In the rare case that I need to plug something into it, the port is completely clean.

Just get a bit of plastic packaging or something similar. Cut thin long rectangle. Then cut a small chunk out near the tip to form a small hook. Scrape along the bottom of the port in all directions. Pull out fluff, then repeat until no more fluff comes out. Then go again as you won't have got it all out even if it looks like it

My charging port died and I'm so pissed. 2 year old Google pixel. Never buying pixel again. I looked up how to desolder the charging port and it's a pain in the ass. It has this like weird shield over it and I have no idea how to desolder this thing. Why can't it be straight forward