Isopropyl alcohol is readily available. Like acetone, it dissolves a wide range of polar compounds. It is also relatively non-toxic and evaporates quickly. Thus it is used widely as a solvent and as a cleaning fluid, especially for dissolving lipophilic contaminants such as oil. Examples include cleaning electronic devices such as contact pins (like those on ROM cartridges), magnetic tape and disk heads (such as those in audio and video tape recorders and floppy disk drives), the lenses of lasers in optical disc drives (e.g. CD, DVD) and removing thermal paste from IC packages (such as CPUs.)

Isopropyl alcohol is used in keyboard, LCD and laptop cleaning as a strong but safer alternative to common household cleaning products.