Don’t store papers and cards inside your closed MacBook Air

If put anything in between your MacBook screen and keyboard — a screen protector, a hard crumb, a camera guard, anything — it’s just a matter of time until you open it up to a shattered display. Here’s why, and how much it will cost to repair.

A video has started to circulate on TikTok about an unfortunate situation by one Mac user, who slipped something inside her MacBook Air before closing it. However, doing so proved disastrous.

In the video posted on Wednesday, TikTok user Classic Heidi revealed that she had accidentally damaged the display, using a simple piece of card. Deciding to move locations to outside her home, she wanted to quickly move all of her stuff, and tossed a thin piece of card into her MacBook Air before closing it.

This is an action many have done before, especially with books and other folding or closable items. It’s something that should not be done with most modern laptops at all, due to the potential damage to the fragile display.

Opening up the MacBook Air, the user was greeted by the telltale black sections and lines on the display, while the top section remained relatively intact. A default background of macOS Monterey is just about visible on the intact part of the display.

Heidi claims she was “so confused” by the situation, but found from online searches that the “pressure” from the card internally cracked the display. She also insists that she had left pieces of paper in her MacBook Air previously, without any damage ensuing.

High-precision problems

Sadly, the video is a harsh reminder that leaving things on a keyboard and closing the lid of a notebook on top has the potential to damage the display. This is true for many notebooks on the market, as the internal layers of the display is often fragile enough to break from a slight bend.

This is especially true for Apple’s hardware, which it warns about on its website. A support page from August 2023 warns about the use of camera cover, palm rests, and keyboard covers with a Mac notebook.

Apple warns that users should remove the covers before closing the display, due to the potential damage the foreign objects can cause. This obviously extends to other items, such as pieces of paper or card.

In explanation, Apple says that the clearance between the display and the top case of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is “engineered to tight tolerances.” This is so that Apple can create thin MacBook designs.

These tolerances are enough that even a piece of paper laid on the keyboard can cause enough of a deflection to cause damage to display panel layers.

According to Apple’s Mac Repair and Service estimator, replacing the front of a cracked M4 13-inch MacBook Air display costs $99 with AppleCare. Replacing the entire display, as this type of damage will require, will cost even more.