The other day I went for a walk, threw my phone in my pocket like I always do, and didn’t think anything of it. But then when I got home, the charger didn’t want to plug in. Here’s what to do if your phone charger won’t plug in or your phone doesn’t want to charge when you plug your charger in.
Look for debris in your charger port
The first thing to check is whether any debris has snuck into your charging port and might be obstructing it. The debris may or may not be clearly visible.
I found a blast of compressed air was enough to clear the debris out of the port the first time this happened to me.
Cleaning your charger port
Sometimes compressed air won’t be enough. When that happens, you will need to clean out the port with a small, thin object thin enough to fit inside the charging port and reach the debris to scrape it out. Don’t use a toothpick, because the wedge shape can easily damaged the charging port. Repeated cleaning with a toothpick will break the solder joints on the port and render the phone unable to take another charge. A phone repair shop can replace the charging port, but it’s not a terribly inexpensive repair.
A thin piece of solid core wire can work well, but if you use that, make sure that you power the phone off before cleaning the port so you don’t short the power pin to ground and damage your phone. Ideally, find something small, thin, nonconductive, and not wedge shaped.
If any of the scares you off, you might want to stick to compressed air.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.