Lock Your Keyboard for Easy Cleaning
Apple’s M1 MacBooks like to stay powered on. They’ll turn on so easily that it’s a nuisance to clean them. Even though Apple recommends that you “shut down your computer and unplug the power adapter” before cleaning it, that advice is virtually impossible to follow with an Apple Silicon MacBook Air or MacBook Pro since pressing anything on the keyboard will power it back on.
That’s not such a big problem for cleaning the screen, although if you have a Touch Bar equipped MacBook Pro, you’ll need to be careful not to accidentally touch that with your cloth, as even the Touch Bar is enough to wake up or power on your MacBook Pro.
For cleaning the keyboard, however, this will quickly get downright annoying. It’s pretty hard to clean a keyboard without pressing any keys, especially when trying to clean between them. You could run your battery down to zero to ensure your MacBook stays off, but fortunately, there’s a better way.
The free KeyboardCleanTool utility is designed with this exact purpose in mind. Fire it up, and it will lock down everything on your keyboard except your trackpad until you click the button to unlock it again.
You don’t need to worry about cleaning your keyboard with the power on as long as you’re not spraying liquid directly onto the keys, which is a bad idea anyway. Use a damp cloth to wipe down your keys and clean between them, and you’ll be fine.