Ask anyone what to do with a wet phone and you will hear the same answer: put it in a bag of rice overnight. The advice is so widespread that it feels proven. It is not, and phone makers now say plainly not to do it.
Where the idea comes from
Dry rice does absorb a little moisture from the air, which is why people keep a few grains in salt shakers. The leap from there to "rice pulls water out of electronics" sounds reasonable, and it comes with a built-in success story: most phones that get a brief splash would have recovered anyway. People put the phone in rice, wait a day, the phone works, and the rice gets the credit.
Why it does not work
- Rice cannot reach the water. The water that matters is inside the phone, behind seals and under metal shields. Rice only touches the outside of the case. It has no way of drawing liquid through a charging port or speaker mesh.
- Rice is a weak absorber. Uncooked rice takes up moisture from the air slowly. Tests comparing drying methods have found that a wet phone left in open air loses water at least as fast as one buried in rice.
- It slows air movement. Evaporation needs moving air. A sealed bag full of grains is close to the opposite.
How it can make things worse
Rice is dusty, and the grains break. Fine starch powder and small fragments work their way into the charging port, the speaker holes and the SIM tray. Mixed with the remaining water, starch becomes a paste. Repair technicians regularly find grains wedged in ports.
Apple's support guidance for a wet iPhone includes a direct warning: do not put the iPhone in a bag of rice, because small particles of rice could damage it.
The larger risk is the false sense of safety. A phone that is still wet inside but looks dry gets switched on or plugged in, and that is when the real damage happens. Electricity moving through wet contacts causes corrosion within hours.
What to do instead
- Switch it off and unplug it. Do not charge it.
- Take off the case and wipe the phone with a soft, dry cloth.
- Let gravity help. Hold it with the charging port facing down and tap it gently against your palm to shake out loose water.
- Leave it in moving air. A shelf near a fan or an open window works well. Give it at least a few hours, and longer after a full dunk.
- Clear the speaker. Once the outside is dry and the phone is on, play the water eject sound with the speaker facing down.
What about silica gel?
Silica gel sachets, the small packets that come in shoe boxes, absorb moisture far better than rice and shed no dust. A sealed box with a handful of fresh sachets is a reasonable option if you have them. It is still slower than you would hope, and it still cannot reach water trapped deep inside, so it does not replace switching the phone off and waiting.
Also on the "do not" list
- Hair dryers, ovens and direct sun. Heat softens the adhesive seals and can damage the battery and screen.
- Compressed air. It can drive water further in.
- Cotton buds or paper in the port. They leave fibres behind and can bend the contacts.
For the full sequence after a serious soaking, see how to fix a water damaged phone.