Magnetic debris stuck in the magsafe power adaptor port on Macbook Pro

Question

I searched and could not find any good advice on what to do if a magnetic particle is stuck in the magsafe power port. The Apple manual gives advice to use a cotton swab but this is futile for a magnetic or metal particle as they are held tightly in by the magnetic attraction of the power port.
Interestingly, I see very little reference to this occurring for folks. For me it happened on both my older MacBook and my new one - 2-3 times on my older - this is the first on my 2010 model. Of course, I don't just perch my laptop on a desk and idolize it - I use it everywhere!
I tried to "fight fire with fire" by using a strong magnet but even that was not strong enough to coax out the bit of metal.
I finally found a good solution. I "sharpened" an old corner of a credit card using scissors so it had a slightly sharp edge (on an inside corner where I had cut the card in 4) - not too sharp so its easily bent as from what i find, you need a lot of force to pry the magnetic debris out. I had tried the credit card w/o sharpening but you need to "dig under" the debris and pop it out. Once I had my new CC fragment tool in hand - I was able to move the magnetic particle to the side, pry under it and pop it out.
On my older macbook, the solution was not so elegant - I used a small flathead screewdriver - I don’t recommend that! It scratches up the inside of the magsafe power port - though it was still functional.

Answer 1

Errr, its not like I'm on the floor of a steel mill!! Serious risk of fire?? If you believe that from small "magnetic" pebbles then I've got some swamp land in Florida I think you'd be interested in.
Seriously, nothing that unusual; on the carpeted floor, on the buss, in my laptop bag -- I have no idea where I'm picking this stuff up from but as I've come to learn, its not that unusual for very small bits of magnetized debris to get picked up by this magsafe port. Not like every other day - something like once a year.