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1. Power it off. Now.
Water plus electricity is what destroys boards. A powered circuit with moisture across it corrodes in minutes through electrolysis; the same board sitting wet and unpowered corrodes far more slowly.
Hold the side button and a volume button and shut it down properly. Do not wait to see if it still works.
2. Don't charge it. Don't plug anything in.
Plugging in a wet phone puts voltage straight across a wet connector. This is the single most common way a recoverable phone becomes an unrecoverable one.
3. Dry the outside and get the water out of the ports
Wipe it down. Hold it port-down and tap gently to let water drain out of the charging port and speaker grille. Don't use a hairdryer — heat drives moisture further in and can warp adhesive seals. Don't use compressed air either; it pushes water deeper.
4. Forget the rice
Rice is a myth. It absorbs ambient humidity slowly and does nothing for liquid already inside a sealed device, while dust and starch get into your ports. Apple explicitly advises against it. Silica gel is marginally better and still not a fix.
Nothing you have at home removes water from between a shielded logic board and its can. That requires disassembly and an ultrasonic bath.
5. Get it to a workshop the same day
This is the step that actually decides the outcome. A phone opened, disassembled, ultrasonically cleaned and dried within hours usually survives. The same phone brought in a week later, after the owner tried charging it twice, usually has visible corrosion on the board and a much lower success rate.
Salt water and sugary drinks are worse than clean water and need faster action — both are far more aggressively corrosive.
What happens at the workshop
The device is opened, the battery disconnected first, and the board removed. Shields come off, the board goes through an ultrasonic bath in a cleaning solution to remove corrosion and residue, then it's dried and inspected under a microscope. Damaged components are replaced individually.
Success depends almost entirely on how fast the phone arrived and whether it was powered on while wet. Even when the board is saved, related parts — the display, the battery, the rear camera — sometimes need replacing separately.
If the board cannot be saved, data recovery is often still possible. Bring the device in either way rather than writing it off.
Frequently asked
Does rice really work for a wet phone?
No. Rice does not remove liquid already sealed inside a phone, and it introduces dust and starch into the ports. Apple recommends against it. Getting the device professionally cleaned the same day is what works.
My iPhone is water resistant. Am I fine?
IP68 ratings are tested in fresh water under lab conditions on a new device. Seals degrade with age, drops and previous repairs, and the rating does not cover sea water, pool water or any drink. Treat any submersion seriously.
It's working normally now. Do I still need to bring it in?
Yes. Corrosion is progressive and phones commonly fail days or weeks after the drop, once it has eaten through enough of a trace. A clean-up now is far cheaper than a board repair later.
How much does water damage repair cost?
It depends entirely on what the board looks like inside, so we diagnose free and quote a fixed price before doing anything. Clean-ups are modest; component-level board repair costs more.
Want us to look at it?
Free diagnosis at our Margao store, a fixed quote before any work, and six months of written warranty.