If your charger doesn’t work, that doesn’t necessarily mean your smartphone is broken. Your charging port can also be full of dirt, especially if you always carry it in a dusty pocket or a bag full of crumbs.
Ports like this are getting smaller and smaller on modern phones, so the mess quickly piles up. The cable cannot enter the port deep enough. No contact is made and charging fails.

Do it carefully

You may think you don’t need any tips to clean this yourself, but it’s good to be especially careful. The charging port works with all kinds of small parts, which can easily bend or break if you are too heavy-handed.

The first tip is therefore not to use anything made of metal to pick in the gate. You can cause serious damage to your phone with a paperclip or needle. Take a wooden or plastic toothpick, preferably as thin as possible. Because we are only going to remove dirt, things like rubbing alcohol are not necessary. This could put you at risk of damaging the connection.

Gently push your toothpick into the charging port and gently scrape out the mess. Hopefully you can now see the fluff and dust particles come out.

You can also choose to wrap some tape around the stoker, sticky side out. This way you can fish out the most stubborn pieces of dirt. The tape must then fit tightly around the stoker, so that it does not fall off accidentally.

If you want to work even safer, wrap some cotton wool around your stoker first. You do this by rolling your toothpick over a cotton pad. When scraping, you have to gently push the stoker up against the charging port, so that the cotton wool doesn’t fall off.

Usb C charging cable

Don’t blow into it

With a flashlight or other light source you look in the gate to see if you have cleaned everything. If you see some dirt, you are tempted to blow into it, but that is not recommended. You can then accidentally blow some saliva or other dirt into the port.

The best solution is to buy a can of compressed air. These are already for sale for a few euros, and you can be sure that you won’t break anything by poking your phone. Put the spout in your port and let it blow well a few times. Keep the can straight, otherwise some moisture may come with it.

If charging with a fresh charging port still does not work, then there is probably something else going on. It is then best to take your phone to a repair point. But then at least you don’t have to be ashamed of your dirty phone anymore.