What to Do If You Drop Your Phone in Water
Water damage is one of the most time-sensitive problems a phone can have. What you do — or don't do — in the first few minutes genuinely affects whether it can be saved. Here's the order to do things in.
Do this immediately
- Get it out of the water and switch it off straight away. Don't test if it still works, don't unlock it to check — power it down. Every second it stays on with water inside risks a short circuit that turns a fixable problem into a write-off.
- Dry the outside. Use a soft cloth or paper towel. Don't shake it — shaking can push water further into the phone rather than out of it.
- Remove the SIM tray if you can do so easily, which lets a little more moisture escape and protects your SIM card.
- Bring it in as soon as possible. Water damage is genuinely a race against time — corrosion starts forming on the internal components within hours, and the longer it's left, the more likely that corrosion causes permanent damage that couldn't have happened if it had been seen to sooner.
Two things to never do
Don't put it in rice. It's the most common advice on the internet and it doesn't actually work the way people think — rice pulls surface moisture off the case, but it does nothing for water that's already inside the phone, and rice dust can get into the ports and make things worse.
Don't turn it back on to "check." This is the single most damaging thing you can do. If there's still moisture near the battery or logic board, powering it on completes a circuit that wouldn't otherwise short — turning a repairable phone into scrap in one tap.
What about "water resistant" phones?
An IP68 rating means a phone is resistant to water under specific lab conditions — still water, a certain depth, a certain time. It isn't a guarantee against a fall into a pool, a spill of coffee (which isn't pure water and conducts differently), or repeated exposure over time as the seals age. Water-resistant phones still get water damage, just less often.
What we actually do
Our water damage assessment opens the phone, checks the internal corrosion indicators, and cleans the logic board and connectors professionally — a proper clean is very different to a bag of rice on a windowsill. We'll tell you honestly what the chances of recovery are before any work starts, and the assessment itself is free.