Sharpie vs. iMac

On a white board, if you accidentally use a permanent marker on it, tracing over the mark with an erasable white board marker and immediately wiping it off removes both marks. Admittedly, I've never tried this on an iMac's screen. 🙂

I would be amazingly cautious, but if nothing else has worked I have read that toothpaste gets permanent marker off tv screens and lcd screens - I myself would not try it until I had nothing else to loose but you can put it in the mix of solutions - google "removing sharpie computer screen" and you may be reassured or frightened away.

Deborah

I'd try 90% or 95% +Isopropyl Alcohol+ (available from any pharmacy). It's an
effective solvent for Sharpie ink, and safe for most plastics.

Be careful about using toothpaste. Some of them have coarse abrasives that
will scratch/cloud the surface of the screen badly -- and some of 'em have
no abrasive at all (and probably won't do a thing).

If you have to go that route, I'd suggest a mild auto polish like Meguiar's
"Deep Crystal System Polish" (available in most auto supply stores). I've
had good luck with it for polishing-out scratches on CDs/DVDs.

Looby

I regularly use 70% isopropyl alcohol swabs and a soft cloth to clean my 24" aluminum iMac screen. It works well and is safe for the screen's surface. I just did a test where I put a couple of heavy one inch Sharpie pen marks (fine point) on a drinking glass. I used a 70% isopropyl swab on it. The marks came off cleanly and quickly--and the glass is unaffected. Whether you want to try this on your computer screen is another matter.

If you don't care to try 70% isopropyl alcohol, call Apple and find out what they recommend. If you don't have Apple Care, you may have to pay for the call. But if they have answers for you, whatever they charge would be a lot less than replacing your screen. It's possible that they could tell you to use 70% isopropyl alcohol swabs. 🙂

Whatever you do, stay away from toothpaste to clean computer screens. I was a dentist and although some are less abrasive than others, they all contain some abrasives. That's what makes them effective. Tom's of Maine toothpaste is probably the least abrasive of them all but even they say it contains "no HARSH abrasives". Toothpaste may have other uses than cleaning your teeth but using it on computer screens is definitely not one of them. And stay away from auto polishes, too, no matter how mild they may seem.

I'd be careful with this technique. I used it once when my son was a little less than 2 years old and took a Brand New Red Sharpie to his $400 natural wood crib and proceeded to take me to his room to see his wonderful artwork! LOL

I can laugh about it now but at the moment my wife and I were a little freaked out. I went to Sharpie's site and searched through their forums and both toothpaste & hairspray were listed as ways to remove sharpie stains. I tried the hairspray first and while it worked, it took some elbow grease so I thought I'd give the toothpaste a try to see if it faired better and it did.

The problem with toothpaste is that it is mildly abrasive and it may end up damaging the screen. try it on a corner of the screen first to ensure it will not damage it before attempting to remove it in the center of your screen.

JT Plexus spray for Paintball masks may also help.

The problem with toothpaste is that it is mildly abrasive ...

The main problems with toothpaste are:

A) No two are alike. There are huge brand-to-brand differences in abrasive properties.

B) They're mainly water-based and have little/no ability to dissolve Sharpie ink. They
work (if at all) by abrasion.

Try the isopropyl alcohol first. It's a good solvent for Sharpie ink -- and BTW, it's what
Dell (and others) recommend for cleaning LCD displays.

...don't take my word for it. Google: +LCD isopropyl+

Looby (escaped chemist)

The screen itself is glass. Thus, hard to harm.

Write on a piece of glass (not the imac again) and try a few things. Sharpies are alcohol based, so alcohol (and a lot of LCD screen cleaners are mostly that) , or even vodka on a rag will do the job. Just don't dribble into the crack at the bottom.

Unless you use an abrasive (all the suggestions of abrasives are wrong) or hydroflouric acid or a blowtorch you are not going to do much damage to glass.

Since the OP's OS is 10.4.x, there is a very good chance it's a white iMac. Not that it matters; I don't think he or she is following anymore...

I guess the glass cover of the aluminum iMac has some advantages, especially as the screen size gets bigger and the chance of an accident increases.

If it has a glass screen covering over the actual LCD, there should be no problem. It would be like cleaning your window.