How You Can Fix Your Drifting Joy-Con Stick - Nintendo Switch 

My drift is literally so bad that I can’t even recalibrate it.

Link: *standing by a cliff* Me: *does absolutely nothing* Link: I have decided that I want to die.

me: trying to catch a scorpion in acnh my left joycon: *cha cha real smooth*

Me: Trying to name my Pokémon Controller: *WHEEL of FORTUNE*

The fact that Nintendo let this massive oversight flaw to happen is just so unacceptable.

Don’t trust this man he doesn’t use dark mode

Me, playing smash: Ok, we gotta recover My joy con: oh! Let me help by *going to the blast zone*

Me: *trying to select a fighter in smash* My left Joycon: slide to the left, slide to the right, criss cross, criss cross, cha cha real smooth

Me: *turns on switch* Switch: *YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY RIGHT ROUND*

Me aiming up in a shooter: My joy-con: WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Me: "Okay, I need to ever so carefully and slowly get across this clif" My Joycon: "COWABUNGA IT IS!!!!"

Mario normally: *trying his best to not die and save Peach* Mario when there is a joy con drift: *I have a sudden urge to walk into this pool of lava.*

Nobody: My left joycon when I'm playing ACNH: ⬆⬇➡↗↖↙↔↩↪↕⤵⬆➡⬇➡⤴🔁🔁🔀⤴

"Joy-Con Drift" sounds like a racing game.

in breath of the wild I like to stand on cliffs and gaze at the beautiful wilderness around me. And then i fall off the cliff

Me: *leaves switch on homescreen* My switch: YA YEET! *scrolls sideways through all my apps*

Me: aiming with a sniper ready to shoot Left joy con: *lets start walking* Right joy con: *lets look at the floor*

My left Joy-Con makes me wanna commit sudoku

Joycon calibration: press the stick down to start calibrating! Joycon: how bout no?

Me aiming at a guy in a shooter My joy-con: I've decided I want go for a spin Me trying to shoot:⬆️↗️➡️↘️⬇️⬅️↘️↕️➡️↕️➡️⬆️⬆️↔️↩↪⤴️🔃🔄↘️↕️

Nintendo Life: *has a gazillion joy cons* All of them work fine Me: *has 2 pairs of joy cons* All of them drift

Did all of this but turned out my controller never had a problem. I was just bad at the game.

Any character of any game while I’m playing switch: “You know what? I am gonna leave.” ➡️

Me: *playing Smash* Go back up! Kirby: Lol no, I'll die instead.

Hey! If you have the drift, and don't have the cleaner and you don't want to deconstruct your joycon, I would recommend just getting a regular plastic straw. Try to put it under the plastic that's on the joystic, and then blow through it. Repeat this for a while and the dust under the stick should disappear. It's actually really simple and it helped me to fix my drift, so I hope this helps!

The analogue sticks as soon as the warranty is over: "now it's time to get funky"

Me: does anything on my switch My joy con: Are you really in charged here?

Thank you so much! Recalibrating helped a LOT, it's actually usable now. Still going to try cleaning cause it's still got issues. If need be I'll replace the stick down the line, seems simple enough. Always have loved your vids and when I was searching for guides I saw yours and immediately knew it'd be great and thorough.

When you type something with drift controls, it suddenly turns into a gambling game like wheel of fortune

When your switch controller drifts and God like "I got you homie" : this video

Just did the stick switch method using your video as a guide. Successful surgery - the patient is now drift-free! Thank you!

I honestly wasn't expecting this video to be as entertaining as it was informative. Nice work!

"No one wants to spend 45 quid on a new Joy-Con" *shows 8 different Joy-Cons*

1:35 First Method - Calibration and Update 2:58 Second Method - Cleaning 5:08 Third Method - Taking it Apart

Okay so I've tried a couple of replacement sticks and the first one was awful; it was constantly moving whatever I was controlling forwards/up. The second one is better; it's not effecting my gameplay much so far but when I check the calibration, it's never in the middle of the circle, always slightly above. Did I buy faulty analog sticks or did I do something wrong when putting them in? Or since the drift is always in the same direction, is there just something else wrong with my joy con?

Thanks for the vid, NintendoLife! Grabbed a replacement kit off Amazon for roughly $15 USD, followed the video guide, and managed to replace my favorite joycon's bad analog stick, and voila! It works perfectly! It was a one-way trip, though, as I stripped one of the tri-wing screws while closing everything up! 😅 Cheers!

Me: (playing minecraft) I'm right next to lava, I'll just set my switch down for a sec. My joy-con: YALL MIND IF I *D R I F T*

When I try to hit rocks in acnh, my character just goes in circles

Hello. I dont have drift problem but my joystick have this spring sound whenever you use it. I check all the videos here in the channel but no video covering that issue. Its annoying. Is there any fix for it

Nobody: My right joycon: Sliiiiide to the right

I feel like throwing my switch at the wall sometimes

The switch came out in 2017. I love the switch, but joy con drift is a problem that shouldn’t exist

Bought a repair kit on amazon for £10 (which has the replacement part and all the screwdrivers you need) and followed this video and I'm now fixed! Thanks so much. It was very fiddily to put things back but I kept trying!

It helped a lot thanks I will subscribe and I like your spirit keep up the good work

Why do $80 controllers drift?

Me: has joycons. Gravity: Exists Me: Drops joycons Drifting: Allow me to introduce myself

Hey, would it be alright to use Kirkland, multi purpose lens cleaner for this?

Me fighting genocide undyne: oh arrows coming from the right, I’ll just turn right joycon: haha shield go up

My ACNH character when pressing DOWN: *slowly walks down.....yyyeeaah NOPE let me go this way *walks up at normal speed

*Playing BOTW and doing the master trials while hiding in a tree* Link: “What’s that over there?” *starts walking left*

me: trying to play splatoon 2 my right joy con: *lets look at the floor!!*

Thank you so much. My son broke the stick, watched this video 2 days ago. Kit just came in the mail from Amazon. And we're up in running in about 15 minutes

My joycons dont drift. Am I treating bokoblins too politely?

Me on the edge of a cliff getting a good pic of a Lynel Link: LEEEEEEEROOOOOY JENKIIINS

I have a question, for my right joy con it has issues pointing up and it always inputs to the south east direction and it wont let me finish the circles which wont let me finish the calibreation so what can i do? Im to scared to try the risky ones

Thank you so much for this video. Bought my kit from Amazon and followed the video. My drifting blue Joy-Con now works perfectly. Thanks again for a great how to video.

You are blessed with 17 joy-con than don’t drift. But my problem isn’t realy drifting. My problem is that when I let go of the joy-con, the circle gets slowly back to the middle.

I worked at a call center under Nintendo as seasonal work, and almost all of my calls as system support were about joycon drift. This was last year's Christmas into January.

Honestly? This was a great video! You told us what to do but also what NOT to do! Very informative and hilarious! Kept me memorized the whole time!

This video looks more like a comedy skit than a repair guide, these are my favorites XD

Ah yes, the duality of having joycon drift but not being able to get them repaired because of coronavirus

Gotta love how quickly these controllers break

Thank you for this! Calibration seems to be working splendidly! You rock!

Cheers for the video mate! Easy to follow and now it works perfect! I ended up having to change the joystick - the most fiddly part I found was reconnecting the ribbon from the shoulder button because of its minimal slack! - little tip for those with the same problem, i used the tweezers and then it went in right away 😁

You're telling me you have 17 out of 17 working joycons while 70% of all joycons I've encountered have drifting issues.

For Method 1. When you are the calibrate screen. Don't just take that cross as saying its fine. Flick the control a few times around and let it rest without you touching it and see if the cross stays. Also note that a "contact cleaner" you may have already in your house is isopropyl alcohol. Use 99% pure stuff though.

With the cleaning method, will rubbing alcohol work? I don't have contact cleaner and it's the only thing I have that might work.

Thank you Alex for your guide on how to switch the joy con stick, had a bit of a struggle in the beginning when it got to the removing, and putting back, the locks for the ribbons, but with enough effort and patience, I got it through. Now it works like a charm. 😄😄😄

I've gotten so used to drifting in Spoon 2 and Zelda it felt weird when I got a pro controller and I didn't have to fight to aim or controll the camera

Step number 2 works 98.9% of the time and if not you used white lithium grease

Great video, appreciate the variety of info and the humor chap!

Thanks for the help! My controller was not working but this video really helped.

If i tried the third method the anxiety would kill me

Im not even able to complete the calibration

That intro with the joy cons falling gave me more anxiety than a federally required test

Subscribed for your amazing sense of humor!

Imagine someone used lithium grease because they muted the video and had captions off

my stick drift is insane in the calibration it goes to the bottom in about 2 seconds

does it only work with we-40? Cause I only have emzone air cleaner

7:49 and 8:01 are optional for those who don't want to remove a lot of ribbon cables, but it does limit your movement during the analog stick replacement so just be extra careful.

My drift got so extremely bad that i got desperate and couldn't wait, so i used a LCD screen cleaner and sprayed that, and it dead ass worked. its been 10 minutes and so far its working without drift EDIT: Spoke too soon, the drift came back, maybe i didn't clean it enough, i did 1 spray and let it dry EDIT: IT WORKS EDIT: Dont do what I did, joycon stopped working, im an idiot AHAHAH was worth the try

how are you supposed to spin it when calibrating when IT WON'T GO IN A CIRCLE

Thanks dude! My controllers now work again perfectly thanks to the contact cleaner, I would never have know this method if you didn’t inform us!

I use contact cleaner and air duster but my stick sometimes doesn't always return to centre. The rubber thing is chipped slightly from use in shooters. Any tips?

Me in Botw: Aims using motion controls Drift:oh look grass

You’re so lucky that none of your 17 JOYCONS drift, haha. I had two pairs and both left ones started drifting

Contact Cleaner worked perfectly! My stick now goes up without slowing down! Thank you so much!

What contact cleaner was used in this video?

“Green circle will be hovering to one side or the other” Either I’m colorblind or he’s colorblind and I don’t know who to trust

Making a video about repairing a joycon with contact cleaner: -I don't have a broken joycon -I don't have contact cleaner EDIT: for the record, the video itself is good, it helped me.

This guy should be on radio. Awesome video.

For method 2 can I use compressed air or lenses cleaner?

The joycons have amazing stuff inside, ir camera, hd rumble, nfc reader, but WHY, WHY IS IT SO FRAGILE SO IT CAN DRIFT EASILY

Talk about backward... This man is looking for a broken joycon.. Thats the oposite of a problem

Calibration was impossible due to the stick fighting me so much. But the contact cleaning worked perfectly first time! Thanks for saving me loads of money :)

Thank you! Your video was super helpful, and I was able to easily replace the stick on both of our left Joy Cons with really bad drift.

*playing Zelda Breath of the wild* *leaves* *Joycon Drifts to a lynel*

Didnt have to flex that hard with your joycons 🤩😫😱

(I know the chances of you seeing this here are slim, so I also opened an account and commented on your site.) You mention that the screws in the back of the Joycon are not the stock screws. I have been trying to track down what size screws (or how else I need to describe them) I need to get to replace mine. Could you give me any direction with that? I'm specifically wanting to replace them with non-Y screws like in the video, so I have avoided the eBay and Amazon listings for replacement packs.

Spraying worked surprisingly well! Thanks!