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As you can see in the pictures bellow, this is the palm rest wear I have on my Macbook Air after 1 year of (heavy) usage. I use my laptop professionally, almost on a daily basis for many hours a day. This is the result after cleaning the whole case with a cleaner I purchased from the Apple Store. As you can see it does not really help remove these stains, it does work wonderfully for all other stains... but I'm afraid this wear is actually removing part of the aluminum cases surface, if I'm right, I guess there's not much hope in restoring the finish. I would like to know if anyone else has experienced this and what you have done about it if you have been able to fix it. Thanks!

Palm rest wear on aluminum macbook air Palm rest wear on aluminum macbook air enter image description here

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  • I purchased XtremeGuard vinyl skins for all my Macs. It covers the palmrest and doesn't allow your skin oils and dirt to affect the aluminium finish. I'm not associated with XtremeGuard and I don't receive any compensation when anyone makes a purchase on their site. I've just found their products to be inexpensive and of high quality (I get the 'full body' skin and always use their coupon codes).
    – fsb
    Commented Jan 24, 2018 at 21:31
  • I have a slight wearout on my 2009 BBP after more than 10 years using it. Now with a 2019 MBP it looked worse after only 2 years. I'd guess they used cheaper material there :-(
    – qwerty_so
    Commented Dec 11, 2021 at 22:20

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I believe those are imprints of your palm rests.

Since the sweat on your hand is a bit acid, it accelerate the aluminum oxidation.

So the more you'll use your mac, it'll get whiter and whiter on the sides of the touchpad (where you put you palms to type on the keyboard)...you may exchage it for a new one, it wont make a difference, you'll get white spots anyway over time.

No cleaning possible, and to prevent further escalation, recommend to use pads, or foil on those areas.

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    @Tetsujin Good suggestion, but I would try it on the back surface first.
    – Ruskes
    Commented Sep 4, 2014 at 18:09
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Not that it will help, but that looks like a 2-coat process, as it's wearing away, the 'outline' is the border between the top coat & the substrate; the patch in the middle is where that base coat has also worn away.

In short, I'd say not fixable, other than by completely stripping & re-coating... or not viable, rather than not fixable.

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Anodization changes the microscopic texture of the surface and changes the crystal structure of the metal near the surface. Thick coatings are normally porous, so a sealing process is often needed to achieve corrosion resistance. Anodized aluminium surfaces, for example, are harder than aluminium but have low to moderate wear resistance that can be improved with increasing thickness or by applying suitable sealing substances.

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  • what coating on Al body?
    – Ruskes
    Commented Sep 4, 2014 at 17:50
  • I have no idea how it's actually done, merely saying what it looks like - you can see a similar effect on a car painted in any metallic colour, a 2-pack process.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Sep 4, 2014 at 17:53
  • It is actually a anodized aluminum body, thus no paint coatings.
    – Ruskes
    Commented Sep 4, 2014 at 17:59
  • anodising is a coating.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Sep 4, 2014 at 18:01
  • Thank your for the detailed info, so it is not a coating (paint) in a sense, it is surface modification.
    – Ruskes
    Commented Sep 5, 2014 at 17:53

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