Dropped in water · Liquid damage · Corrosion
Water damaged iPhone recovery — move fast, skip the rice
Water rarely destroys iPhone data on contact — corrosion destroys it over the following days. Get the phone to a lab quickly and the odds stay strongly on your side. We treat water-damaged iPhones as time-critical, every time.
1300 806 557Free diagnostic · Fixed quote · Proof before payment
What water actually does inside an iPhone
The moment liquid gets past the seals, two clocks start. The first is electrical: if the phone is powered while wet, current flows where it shouldn’t and components burn out in seconds — this is why charging a wet iPhone is the single most damaging thing you can do. The second clock is chemical: even after the phone “dries out”, the minerals left behind keep corroding copper tracks and component legs day after day. A phone that still worked on Monday can be unrecoverable by Friday for one reason only — it sat in a drawer while corrosion ate the board.
Salt water, pool water and drink spills are all worse than fresh water — salt is aggressively conductive and corrosive, chlorine attacks metal, and sugary drinks leave a conductive film that never really dries. Whatever the liquid was, the treatment is the same: strip the board, clean it properly, repair what the liquid took out, extract the data.
The rice myth, retired
Rice absorbs almost none of the moisture inside a sealed phone, does nothing about the minerals already deposited on the board, and costs you the days that matter most. The Apple-endorsed advice is simply: don’t charge it, and get it looked at. If you read one thing before your phone arrives here, make it our first-response guide: iPhone water damage — what to do in the first 5 minutes.
“But it still works…”
A wet iPhone that seems fine is the trap that catches the most people. Corrosion doesn’t announce itself — the phone works right up until a track eats through, and then it doesn’t. If your iPhone has been in water and the data matters, the safe play is a backup today and a proper board inspection soon after. We’d rather tell you the board is clean than recover it dead a month later.
On the bench
How we bring a wet iPhone back
Every water job is treated as time-critical from the moment it lands, under ISO Class 5 rated clean-air equipment.
Immediate teardown
The phone is opened, the battery is disconnected to stop electrical damage, and the liquid indicators and board are photographed and mapped.
Ultrasonic clean
Shields come off and the board goes through an ultrasonic bath and lab-grade solvent clean to strip corrosion and mineral deposits from every joint.
Board repair
Under the microscope we repair what the liquid took out — damaged power circuitry, corroded tracks and failed components — until the board can run stably.
Verified extraction
With the phone stable, we extract and checksum a complete copy of your data, show you proof, and hand it over on your terms.
Honest odds
What moves the odds after a dunking
Our overall recovery rate is 92% across every device type we see — but your odds are personal to your phone. Here is what genuinely moves them.
Helps your chances
- The phone was powered off quickly and stayed off
- It reaches the lab within a day or two
- Fresh water, brief exposure
- No charging attempts after the event
Hurts your chances
- It was charged, or kept being used, while wet
- Salt water, pool water or sugary drinks
- Days or weeks in a drawer “drying out”
- DIY disassembly or heat-gun attempts before it arrived
Transparent from the start
What it costs
Diagnosis first, fixed quote second, and you approve everything before recovery work starts. No data, no recovery fee.
Standard assessment
Full diagnostic on your iPhone, a written report of what failed, and a fixed recovery quote. You decide from there — no obligation.
Critical priority
Your phone goes to the front of the queue with an engineer assigned same-day. For work deadlines, legal matters and can’t-wait situations.
Emergency 24/7
We start immediately and work continuously until it is done — nights, weekends and public holidays included.
Priority fees cover the expedited service; the recovery quote itself depends on what your phone needs and is fixed in writing before any work begins.
Straight answers
Water damage questions, answered straight
Can a water damaged iPhone be recovered?
Very often, yes — especially if it was powered off quickly and reached a lab within days. Water itself rarely destroys the storage chip; the killers are electricity flowing through a wet board and corrosion that builds over time. Both are avoidable with speed.
My iPhone was in salt water. Is it hopeless?
No, but the clock runs much faster — salt is severely corrosive and conductive. Rinse-free time matters: power it off and get it to us as fast as you practically can, and tell us it was salt water so the cleaning process starts the right way.
It went through the washing machine. Same deal?
Yes — washing machine phones combine long submersion, detergent and heat, so they need the full strip-and-clean treatment. We see them regularly and recover them regularly; speed is still the main factor.
It dried out and works fine now. Am I in the clear?
Treat it as on borrowed time. Mineral deposits keep corroding the board long after the phone feels dry, and failures weeks later are common. Back it up today, and if the data really matters, have the board inspected and cleaned.
How fast can you start?
The 24/7 emergency service ($1,400) starts immediately, any hour — the right call for salt water or business-critical data. Critical priority ($650 + GST, $715 inc. GST) gets an engineer on it within 24–48 hours, and the free standard assessment runs 3–5 business days.
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Wet iPhone? Every hour counts
Power it off, skip the rice, and call. Free diagnostic, fixed quote, and you see proof of your files before you pay a cent.