Working outside on the porch today I got myself a live bug in my laptop screen. I heard about it before but never had one until now. They are called thunder flies and are little nasty bastards that crawl into your LCD screen. They are a few ways to get rid of them, most importantly, don’t crush him until he is at the edge of your screen.
Method 1 – Path blocking
Apply light pressure with your fingertip to block his path (approximately 1cm from the bug) and guide him this way to the edge of your screen. The best place is the bottom. When the bug is (almost) out of the side, crush it!
Method 2 – Using your phone’s flashlight
The little bug does not like too much heat. With the flashlight from your phone, you can block force him to run to the other side. Keep enough distance at first, because if they get too hot they are dead. (and you are left with a black dot)
Method 3 – Removing a dead bug
When the bug is dead you can try to use your fingertips to vibrate the screen. This way it will fall down to the bottom and be out of your sight. If vibrating with your fingertips won’t work, you can also use a suction cup mount from your GPS for example. Attach it to your screen and gently pull it back to create some room between the screen and display.
Another thanks for publishing this. Method #3 using an iFixit toolkit’s suction cup & “guitar pick” to break the seal gently, combined with light tapping was exactly the ticket to get rid of the dead bug that was dead center in the middle of my 4K TV.
Method 3 actually worked. It’s a good thing I stopped rubbing against the screen at the risk of squishing the ant and it would have been a wrap.