Apple Really Doesn’t Want You To Fix This - MacBook Keyboard Replacement 

I miss the good ol' days (pc days I mean) where in the majority of brands you could replace the keyboard in under 60 seconds. They were fitted from the front and held in place with a dozen clips. Once you popped the clips and detached the ribbon, you could just simply install the new one and boom, new keyboard. Hell, you could even change the region of the keyboard itself, from Spanish to Japanese for example. Everything was easier back then... 💔

The moment Apple sees their products being successfully repaired they work twice as hard to make sure it doesn't happen on next years devices

Holy shit Apple demands blood sacrifice to repair a keyboard.

I was thinking of buying a macbook and this man has motivated me never to buy any Apple products not for the money but their sheer disrespect for the customers and our environment

i wish there was a law against companies to do things like this. everything u buy should be repairable by the user if they wish so

I like that you admit when you miss one or two of the connections or screws. It emphasizes just how difficult the process is and kind of pushes aside any discouragement, if I were to miss one or two.

Well you would never think of anyone using a hammer and chisel on a laptop. Today we got to see just that.

Ah yes, the only laptop ever made that needs a HAMMER to fix it.

This is the company that doesn't include a freaking charger for their new phones to "reduce waste", but if a key goes on your macbook keyboard you might as well toss it in a landfill or pay the price of a new one to get it repaired.

No keyboard on any laptop should ever be that difficult to replace, period.

The fact that apple feels the need to add security systems in place to keep people from messing with the laptop they purchased, and own, says everything you need to know about how apple feels about you owning their products. No need to worry so much, Apple! I won't be owning any of your products anyways.

I noped out at work when I found out that the "proper" way to replace a MacBook battery was to literally disassemble the *entire thing* piece by piece, remove battery, replace it, then reassemble the *entire laptop.*

Apple should never talk about 2 things: Respect for the customer or environment.

I've done this repair myself on the larger model, its actually easier and nicer to use a Dremel to remove the rivets, gives it a smoother finish and risks less been broken in the process. I invested in a pillar drill style mount for mine, to make the work more precise. Would 100% recommend for future repairs like this.

"The Reason behind it" as you ask, isnt likely cost of doing it, or speed. It's pure and simple fact that they do not want anyone but THEM repairing it. They want to charge you insane pricing to do repair work or push you into buying a new machine. Either way, its money in their pocket. Thats the only reason, and the reason they are fighting against Right to Repair. (They are, in fact, the BIGGEST company fighting against Right to Repair).

8:30 regardless of the reason, they shouldn't be allowed to say they care about the environment. Because no matter the reason for doing it, wasting half of a laptop including a battery is an INSANELY wasteful way of replacing a nearly fully plastic keyboard. Their margins are high enough to where the cost factor really isn't an excuse.

apple : we want to reduce e-waste. *also apple : make every product much more impossible to repair.*

Trust me it's harder on a 2016 MacBook or newer, ive done a few and you have to individually break the rivots. As using too much force bends the metal frame too much that it won't bend back into shape. They also stopped using the metal backing to the keyboard for the butterfly keyboard so it disintegrates into pieces and makes the whole process even harder.

This man so amazing..love your channel a lot

Good on you for sticking it to The Man. I am definitely not afraid to take stuff apart and fix it myself but this is one job I would be unlikely to undertake. I would be sure to break something applying that level of force.

8:48 Another cause of clicking issues is the battery swelling underneath the trackpad. I heard about that in some videos.

For something that fails as often as it does to be so hard to repair just goes to show you how much Apple is anti-consumer.

It's so terrifying when I try to fix electronics and open them up. I always end up with a missing screw or part and forgetting where things should be. Good work and it was so satisfying!

How nice is too see these apple repairs videos thru my Thinkpad...

What a repair! I love your honesty about, for example, missing a few screws. Adds to the respect of this monstrous task. It’s really nice to see you repair this laptop further even after the original restoration video

I honestly do believe that manufacturing costs/simplicity has nothing to do with why they use rivets. I do believe that Apple does it deliberately to make sure you buy a new one when they keyboard goes. It's why I do not ever under any circumstance use/buy/recommend any Apple products.

was looking for some tap and die reviews what a lovely surprise

Amazing skills. Good job.

It makes me wonder if Apple holds a competition for the least repairable/most wasteful design every time they release a new product. The "engineers" who designed this should be drummed out of the profession.

I’ve fixed 2012 MBP keyboard, but instead of the nips, it were 50 super tiny screws. Thanks 🙏🏻 Hugh

What a champion.... you have ventured 'where angels fear to tread'..just contemplating that job, brings tears to my eyes, but seeing your video, makes me adamant when buying a mid 2015 MBP, to get one with a good battery and keyboard. Many thanks. Cheers

Thanks for the cleaning under the trackpad tip, can’t believe I forgot that.

I can’t help conclude that apple go out of their way to make the laptop difficult to repair so you end up buying a new one which is actually bad for the environment

Been looking forward to this video!

Jeff is amazing!!!

As someone who just got into apple products it has been a joy to work on older models of their devices. They became harder to work on around the time Steve Jobs died and the company had to start making designs without his input.

Miss the days of simpler and easier to repair technology back in 2010. Even though I was too young to care. Still would be nice if everything was ‘easy’ to fix nowadays.

I appreciate your creative approach to tackling problems that others might walk away from. Another great video.

Hugh Jeffreys is a man of steel. So calm. I would be long ago losing my mind and my rage level should be high. :D

it works for me ... thanks a lot

*The side cutters were the right tool actually!* So much so that with newer Macs (especially with butterfly switches) it's impossible to use the hammer without breaking them! BUT A) Do that under a microscope. (If you're a pro repairman, you should have one, otherwise you shouldn't even try this). B) Use very old cutters, so they're less likely to cut the rivet and will just grab it. C) Needs a little practice (let's say... a single keyboard since they're full of rivets) before becoming way faster and safer (for rivets and for your hands) than the hammer. Source: worked in a repair shop, changed dozens of Mac keyboards. I myself had been using hammer and screwdriver for years because I had given up too early on the side cutters after I cut the firs rivet. Then the new keyboard with smaller rivets came out and the hammer just destroyed them, so I researched and found out that the cutters were the only tool to do that.

I did this same repair a year ago. My replacement keyboard came with it's own backlight so I didn't have to worry about damaging the original. But, it didn't come with screws, so I instead super glued the new keyboard to the frame. Kinda janky but it's worked well.

I followed this video to replace my my keyboard. A word of advice for hammering out the rivets is use a very shallow angle for the screwdriver (i.e. hit the rivets sideways) and spread out your first few attempts so you don't have consecutive missing screws if you stuff up. I sheared off the first few rivets cause I was using too steep an angle. The new keyboard works but unfortunately I now have to deal with slightly spongy arrow keys due to the sheared rivets blocking the screw holes in that area.

Love these kind of vids. And yes, the iFixit pro kit is the dogs bollocks, as they say. Used it for years at my last job and it's worth every penny.

Uncovering something's bad from technology is something that viewers interested keep doing it Hugh

Apple logics : If you break one, buy another one. Any third party repairs : Are you sure?

Brilliant exposition.

Moral of the story, never buy an apple product.

Hugh can add another notch on his bedpost against Apple. Great work Hugh!

I do field warranty parts replacements for Dell, HP and Lenovo. Almost all thin and lights have riveted keyboards so the OEM just sends a palmrest/kb combo part. However swapping the palmrest is super easy on all 3 brands.

I recently purchased a second hand late 2008 model (15 inch MacBook Pro) The keyboard is still working, but there seems to be 1 or 2 keys that have seen better days (none of the keys are loose, but 2 are a little wonky, one of which is a little broken (missing plastic) and it makes a crunchy sound when pressed)

Thank you for the video! Where did you buy the keyboard, do you have a link?

Customer: my Macbook Keyboard is broken Genius Bar: We can fix that with a new Keyboard……….. attached to a new chassis, screen, motherboard and battery. That’ll be $999. Thank you.

I don't know if it would work in this case, but when I needed to remove rivets many years ago I was taught to drill them out. For such small rivets, a steady hand and tiny (easily breakable) drill bit would be needed. What a pain!

I had the Apple PowerBook G4 Titanium back then. Replacing the keyboard was done in seconds. No need to open the PowerBook at all. With two little clips on the top of the keyboard you were able to just remove and refit it or fit a new one!

How did you get around tapping the holes where the rivets were for the threads of the screws you installed?

Apple really does not want you to replace their keyboard. Kudos for your perseverance and determination. Great work.

In retrospect, in case you have to replace another keyboard the same way, you might as well start knocking out the rivets starting from one side with your hammer and screwdriver and slowly pull out the damaged keyboard until you reach the last rivets. It's a good thing you would still be able to use screws after the rivets have been taken out.

Thank you so much for the video, without it I wouldn’t have been able to remove the keyboard from my MacBook. I’ll give an update when I install a new one.

I’ve got to go a similar repair to my 2013 macbook. Any opinion on maybe using a dremel tool and grinding the rivet tops? I was hoping a small tap on each may be enough, but not sure I want metal “dust”…

Great video. Doesnt surprise me in the least that Apple makes the keyboard so difficult to repair or replace. They are well known for their reluctance in the right to repair space. Thanks for sharing 🙂

And I have an older laptop that is fully modular. It is enjoying itself. I miss those days

Helpful video. Thanks. The fact that you legit drew blood in making it got yourself a Like fro me. 🙂

I had a similar issue. I cut a piece of cardboards from a cereal box and placed it under the space bar cover above the switch well. Took less than a minute and has worked perfectly for two years. Shoulda given me a call!

I sort of think you are intentionally trying to come of with a reason for apple doing this, as to not face defamation charges, but incase you aren't, I believe the soul purpose of Apple using rivets is because it will make things harder to repair, so people will go to Apple instead of replacing it.

Great video! yeah these keyboards are a huge pain to remove. The buterfly ones are even worse to replace as the rivets are much smaller, so after you remove them you either need to use even smaller screws, or you have to drill every hole a bit larger to fit the old style screws. Love your simple approach with the hammer and screwdriver, I tend to use a automatic spring-loaded center-punch with a flat blade to pop out the rivets easily while the keyboard is still in place., I usually manage to get every rivet out like that and I don't have to tear out the old keyboard with brute strength.

After seeing this video, I am so happy with my old Lenovo Thinkpad. The keyboard has been out of the laptop many times, it has been stripped to the bare bones, because I had to replace the cpu cooling paste and the motherboard had to come out. That was the last step in the process. There a manageable number of phillips screws in a few different sizes, no adhesive or glue except for one piece of kapton tape, a few connectors and definitely no rivets. It was very straightforward to repair or replace myself. Later, I did the same on a newer Thinkpad in a similar fashion, it was relatively easy and I am no expert. Even the newest Thinkpad X1 Nano seems to relatively easy. No Macbook for me, ever.

Pro tip for removing (normal sized) rivets (that were attached to 2 mm thick sheet metal): use a drill of the appropriate size. If your drill bit was the exact right size, you're left with the original hole and the rivet has been torn to shreds. When you're done with that, just reattach the sheets with the fastener of your choise (probably not one of those tiny blind rivets for a dollhouse).

This is exactly how NOT to design a laptop keyboard! At least when there are tons of screws, you can unscrew them. Even heat staked keyboards (as found in many modern HPs and the like) can be replaced with using just a hot air source (or soldering iron that you don't care about). I can definitely see why the top case is usually replaced as a whole under these circumstances, and that's what I'd do - top cover/palmrest c/w keyboard as one piece.

Why didn't you tried to drill out the rivet heads with a short 2-3mm drill instead? Maybe is easier on the housing, aluminium is quite soft. Nice repair BTW. You could be surprised but these small machine screws are expensive, almost twice the cost than a rivet. If you order a few million of these it cost a lot for apple :D

I'm liking the idea of The Framework Laptop more and more

Thats surely done in the customer's interest!

Few years later: Apple serialises Keyboard and Logic Board, making the replacement inoperable even if you managed to rip the old one out.

A Dremel might be easier for rivet removal.

This awakened in me the long fogotten memory of me trying to replace the keyboard on my 2012 MBA. NEVER AGAIN, it was on of the worst repair experiences

Some windows laptop do so. I repaired my friends keyboard, had the same issue. But those were plastic rivets , I just heated the soldering iron and removed them.

These are things that always made me refrained from using a macbook despite how much I liked them. *The maintenance process is just too much of a hassle* even for something as simple as repasting and/or cleaning the fans.

Over the years, due to the many well known problems with Apple's laptops, it's to the point that I have developed a strange familiarity and comfort level disassembling/reassembling my MacBooks. I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I suspect the latter.

The keyboard is significantly easier, and safer, to remove if you first knock the tops of the rivets off with an xacto knife. I replaced the keyboard on a Dell Inspiron 7000 that was similarly riveted in place this way. This also has the advantage of not destroying the old keyboard.

I got a 2013 top case and removed the keyboard intact. (Used a small screwdriver as you did to unfix all rivets.) I have a 2012 a1398 so I ripped the keyboard out of it - most holes were ok. Got the screws and just fitted it to the late 2012 macbook. The original backlight was fitted. The later keyboard is much better. Only small indignities on the removed keyboard. Will put it back together tomorrow.

Great job, mate! Even though it's a huge pain in the back to repair it you still managed to fix it in the end! It must've taken u a lot of time, effort and patience to do so! Even though I'm a Windows guy, I like Macbooks but it's really sad to see Apple disabling 3rd party repairs on their devices... Miss the days when they were modular during the Steve Jobs era such as the 2008-12 unibody MBPs and their predecessors/PowerBook G4...

When you have to almost destroy computer parts to repair the computer

"I'll clean off the residual keys from my workspace" is the funniest way to phrase that, I love it

You improved it for future serviceability! Even though the previous gen had screws lol.

I use a dremell to take out the keyboard The keyboard is probably the harder to replace but the easiest to damage Just don't wash your hands like 3 or 4 times and it will die fast Leave the MacBook on the car and the keyboard dies Use the MacBook on public places and the keyboard dies because of the dust Is just gross Replacement chinesse keyboards usually last a lot longer

After seeing the blood on your hands.. I think, you must sue Apple, for the liquid damage. hahaha.

The best way of dealing with those rivets would be to use Dremel (or Dremel-like) tool and a sharp "stubby" 4 or 5 mm drillbit - or a small round burr tool. You don't need to drill/mill those rivets "heads" (they are countersunk) off completely - but removing majority, or even some of that splayed/ peened metal will greatly facilitate the removal, and you won't need to apply so much force. Speaking of which: when tearing off the keyboard like at 6:05 you should always remove all those "free floating" keys from the table AND press down the "lattice" part of the unibody with some stiff plate (a piece of plywood, MDF or such) as close as possible to the "tear-off zone". This will not only make it easier to remove the keyboard (or rather, its remains) but will also prevent the lattice from getting bent. On the rivets itself - while I have a fair share of my own grumblings and whiners regarding "recent developments and changes at Apple" (I'm a Macs user since '97), I sorta-kinda can justify their decision to use rivets here. It makes a sense from engineering point of view, albeit this is of a little consolation for those unfortunate fellows with broken keyboards. There's simply not that much of metal on those "junctions" to drill and tap them without significantly weakening them, and making stubs with female threads (like the one can see at 6:06 next to the "P" key) at every place where rivets are located (ALL of those junctions, as far as I can see) would be too time consuming - and it would bump up the price of the unibody shell itself. So, I guess, the "compromise" was made (it's cheaper to replace half of a single laptop under warranty for every thousand or so of MacBooks produced than trying to make ALL of them "repair-friendly"), and should those keyboard itself be of better quality it wouldn't be much of an issue. But the quality problem of those keyboards combined with this way of attaching them aggravates the whole problem. And yes, this is going to become worse and worse, as labour cost of any fix-it-man will become greater and greater, while mass-production costs "per unit" will become lesser and lesser - and with "general public" always on a lookout for cheaper and cheaper goods. In short, "dispose-it-off civilisation" When it was the last time when it was actually cheaper to pay for replacing the bent rim on a bicycle wheel, rather than replacing the whole wheel? (I'm talking "average daily" bike, not any high-end God-knows-what for thousands of bucks). When it was the last time when it made more sense to fix and rebuild seized (for the lack of oil) engine in a mid-price "average" family car than replacing the whole engine (either new one or one "recycled" from a scrap yard)? Why computers should be immune to this trend? And why the chicken... well, never mind ;-)

just a thought u could use a drill and bit to drill out rivets to get it out easier

High Jeffreys: (Replaces a MacBook keyboard) Apple: “Wait. That’s illegal.”

When I was a teen, a neighbor of mine was throwing out a great big TV. Bigger than the one I had at the time. So I took it home, just intending to rip it apart. I'd never seen inside a TV before. The only actual issue was a loose connection to the button panel. I didn't, and still don't know the first thing about TV repair, electronic repair, any of that stuff. About the extent of my knowledge was, and pretty much still is 'use electrical tape on wires' and 'solder is a metal with a low melting point that's used to make connections'. A lighter and a nail later.... I'd fixed the TV. Now I get that technology has gotten a lot more complicated. But the idea that you are ACTIVELY PREVENTED from repairing something YOU OWN even if you have a complete understanding of everything involved in the process? THAT'S bullshit. I've basically lived my life on hand-me-downs. I remember arguing with a computer store clerk because I was looking for something to plug my computer into my TV, and this one guy argued with me for 10 minutes that what I wanted was an HDMI connector.... DESPITE BEING TOLD MY TV DOESN'T HAVE AN HDMI PORT. Like... the concept of a TV without one was something he refused to believe. It was painful, and he kept whining that I was just going to be in the next day to get what he's suggesting because the quality will be too low. Another employee actually came by to see 'what the problem was', and thankfully was much more helpful! I told him 'I have an older TV, I want to stream youtube to it, so I want something that uses the yellow/white/red connectors if you have it.' and he said 'Oh. Yeah we've got those over here.'. 30 seconds, boom done. .... Okay that turned into a rant. My POINT... is this whole proprietary anti-repair culture is bullshit.

A couple of years ago my mac book air had a defect keyboard. Bought a new from eBay and just ripped the old one out of the frame like in the video. Glued on the new one - it worked. If you dont care about optics and re-selling value, then glue is the best solution.

Having worked as an Apple Reepair Technician, i have always loved how easily repairable Apple has made their macbooks and imacs(sarcasm may have been used in this post)

This is actually easier comepare to the macbook from 2019 as the keyboard just desintegrate when you start to peel it.

It is vastly easier to use rivets instead of screws The problem is you only do that when you know that the thing is never needing to be taken apart. The Russian migs in the Cold war used rivets instead of flush welds or anything other like Western aircraft design. The theory was that you could simply just get another one instead of repairing the aircraft tank gun or whatever. It worked because there was a large manufacturing system behind it and the fact that individual pieces generally weren't either kept or used for super long periods of time. However, with a laptop like this, I don't think that methodology is viable.

Danke!

How were you able to use screws? were there screw holes?

Ive been an apple certified tech for 5 years and year after year the hoops we have to jump through to do repairs, all so normal people can't is insane. Apple configurator/T2 chips being the most recent nightmare.

When you said that the keyboard was riveted in, I thought you were gonna have to bust out the drill. However, I was not disappointed with hammer and chisel. What a brutal repair process Apple made you go through! It has me curious about how bad their newer stuff is gonna be when you have to replace anything on them.

Just wondering why you did not cut/grind the rivets heads off with a dremel?

an alternative fix to your space bar issue, would be to place a small plastic piece between the key and the receptor that would allow you to press the key on its sides but still be pressing the center receptor