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After a new round of testing, the Miele Classic C1 Pure Suction (a canister vacuum) is our pick for the best vacuum for hardwood floors. Oil Application Pad
The Miele Complete C3 Calima (a canister vacuum) is our upgrade pick, and the Dyson V12 Detect Slim (a cordless stick vac) remains our also-great pick.
Any vacuum can clean hardwood floors—this is the simplest possible task for a vacuum cleaner. You don’t need anything special to get dust, hair, crumbs, or anything else off your wood, tile, or laminate floors. But some vacuums do it a little better than others. To avoid scattering debris or possibly damaging sensitive flooring, look for a model that either lets you switch off the spinning brush roll or has a special soft-fabric brush roll or no brush roll at all.
Our longtime favorite upright vacuum works well for most homes, with adjustable features that make it effective on both hardwood floors and other surfaces.
This nimble vacuum for hardwood floors and low-pile carpeting includes tools designed to do the job right. It has given one Wirecutter editor a decade of excellent, trouble-free cleaning.
This nimble, high-tech model is light, powerful, and easy to maneuver. Its Laser Slim Fluffy cleaner head is specifically designed to snag dust and fur from bare floors.
Although hardwood floors are the easiest thing to vacuum, strong suction is still key to cleaning them quickly and thoroughly.
To avoid scattering debris, you should be able to turn off the carpet-cleaning brush roll, if the vacuum has one.
Our longtime favorite upright vacuum works well for most homes, with adjustable features that make it effective on both hardwood floors and other surfaces.
Our favorite all-around vacuum—for any type of flooring—is the Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352. This reasonably priced, durable machine has always performed very well in our cleaning tests on all surfaces, including bare floors. You can toggle the brush roll on or off, so it won’t send hard debris like cat litter or breakfast cereal shooting across the room when you’re cleaning wood, linoleum, or tile. And even if you currently need to clean only bare floors, if you do end up needing to clean rugs or carpets someday, this Shark vacuum will future-proof your purchase.
This nimble vacuum for hardwood floors and low-pile carpeting includes tools designed to do the job right. It has given one Wirecutter editor a decade of excellent, trouble-free cleaning.
If you don’t plan to clean rugs (or at least not thick ones), you can get a vacuum that’s purpose-built for cleaning bare floors. These are most often “suction-only” models, without a brush roll. One suction-only vacuum that we’re really fond of is the Miele Classic C1 Pure Suction. Miele canister vacuums are known to last for decades, run quieter than almost any other vacuum, and have great filtration. The Classic C1 Pure Suction is the lowest-priced Miele canister model you can buy. It has a suction-only cleaning head (no brush roll) with soft bristles around the edges that let it glide smoothly across bare floors. The strong suction allows it to work pretty well on low-pile rugs, too.
This nimble, high-tech model is light, powerful, and easy to maneuver. Its Laser Slim Fluffy cleaner head is specifically designed to snag dust and fur from bare floors.
Another effective way to clean bare floors is to use a vacuum with a soft-fabric brush roll. Rather than trying to agitate and fling debris, as a typical brush roll does, a fluffy brush roll essentially hugs debris as it moves from the floor to the vacuum intake. Several companies make these kinds of cleaner heads, but in our tests the Dyson V12 Detect Slim performed the best.
The V12 Detect Slim’s Laser Slim Fluffy cleaner head has a microfiber brush roll that is specifically designed to suck up dust and fur from bare floors while also protecting sensitive surfaces—including wood floors—from scratches. Its separate Motorhead cleaner head has bristles and hair-removal vanes that work well on carpets and rugs. This model has several high-tech features that make it almost fun to use; these include a sensor that automatically adjusts suction, a laser headlight that illuminates dust in dim corners, and an LCD screen with a battery countdown and particle counter.
Writer Liam McCabe conducted research and testing for this guide and others. Liam tested more than 100 models on all kinds of surfaces—including wood, linoleum, laminate, and tile.
Staff writer Sabine Heinlein covers vacuums and floor care for Wirecutter and has written guides to handheld and cordless stick vacuums, among others.
Any decent vacuum can keep hardwood floors tidy. Keep in mind, however, that with a cheaper model, you might have to make two or three passes, and it might not grab the smallest (fine dust) or largest (yard waste) debris. Certain features can make the job easier, though.
Strong suction and airflow are a huge help in picking up debris on the first try, particularly the very small or large stuff.
Beyond that, you need a vacuum that won’t force you to use a carpet-cleaning brush all the time. A spinning brush roll with stiff bristles is great for rugs because it agitates the carpet fibers, digging up the hair and dust so that the vacuum can suck the stuff up. But this kind of brush can be counterproductive on bare floors because it scatters some kinds of debris before the vacuum can suck it up. In extreme cases, a too-harsh brush can scratch softer types of stone, tile, or wood flooring.
Many vacuums have an on/off switch for their brush rolls, so you can just shut down the brush roller when you’re cleaning bare floors and turn it back on if you transition to a rug. Some models have cleaning heads with no brush rolls at all, while a few others come with a specialty soft-fabric brush roll that’s purpose-built for cleaning bare floors—neither of these types is great on rugs, though some models give you the option to switch between different heads for different surfaces.
Some cleaning heads also have subtle features that help scooch bigger debris toward the vacuum’s intake. These features might include a small apron (or flap) on the sides or near the rear of the head, side-mounted bristles (or even tiny air intakes to corral bits from baseboards and corners), or gates at the front of the head to give passage to big debris (like Froot Loops cereal, for example).
You can read more about what makes for a powerful, versatile vacuum in our guide to plug-in upright and canister vacuums.
Our longtime favorite upright vacuum works well for most homes, with adjustable features that make it effective on both hardwood floors and other surfaces.
The Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352 has been our pick for the best vacuum for eight years running, and it’s a great vacuum for hardwood floors and carpets alike. Its powerful suction cleans both surfaces very well, and smart design features let you easily optimize its performance on each.
The Navigator allows you to turn off its brush roll with an easy flick of the three-position switch. When the brush is powered down, the vacuum doesn’t scatter debris across bare floors.
In our bare-floor tests, the Navigator Lift-Away performed as well as any machine at picking up cat hair, dried chickpeas, ground coffee, shredded paper, sawdust, and sand in just a few passes. We were particularly impressed by how quickly and completely it picked up cat litter from a bare floor (in a single back-and-forth pass). The Shark’s side-suction performance (that is, its ability to pick up debris from the left and right sides of the floorhead) also stood out: It picked up almost all of the lentils and cat litter we had scattered into a corner and up against baseboards, outperforming even some high-end vacuums we’ve tested in that regard.
The Navigator Lift-Away is a great vacuum in a lot of other important ways, too. It’s lighter and easier to steer than most uprights at this price, and its low-profile cleaning head and lift-away canister can help it get into more hard-to-reach areas than usual. We haven’t found it to be prone to clogs, and it also comes apart in more places than most uprights, so if it does clog it’ll be easy to fix. The NV352 has been available for over 10 years and has an above-average track record for reliability and durability, with lots of replaceable parts that are usually in stock, plus a five-year warranty that Shark has been pretty decent about honoring. The most common complaints are that it “snowplows” larger particles (think Froot Loops), pushing them around with the cleaning head rather than sucking them up, and that it has a tendency to tip over if you yank the hose too hard, due to the narrow cleaning head and top-heavy body.
To learn more about the Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352, check out our guide to the best upright and canister vacuums.
We don’t actually like super-cheap stick vacuums, but if you have only bare floors to tidy, this super-basic vacuum will do the job quicker than a broom and is not much more expensive. It’s a suction-only vacuum, with no brush roll for cleaning rugs.
Any vacuum without a brush roll works pretty well on bare floors—even a bargain-bin model like the Bissell Featherweight 2033. We aren’t really endorsing this vacuum, but if you want something for the occasional easy cleanup, this Bissell works fine.
The Bissell Featherweight is impressively lightweight and conveniently bagless, and it converts into a (corded) handheld vacuum. It has solid ratings on the websites of most retailers, and cleaning with it is definitely easier than using a broom.
But this Bissell snowplows big debris, can’t suck the fine dust out from the cracks in your floorboards, and might take a few passes for the weak-ish suction to pick up heavier debris like breakfast cereal or even cat litter. Obviously, it’s near-worthless on almost any kind of rug, apart from grabbing surface-level debris on flatweave. And surprise, surprise: It’s not a well-built, durable product, either. You’re usually better off spending more money on a better vacuum, but if you need a cheap backup stick vac, the Featherweight is okay.
This nimble vacuum for hardwood floors and low-pile carpeting includes tools designed to do the job right. It has given one Wirecutter editor a decade of excellent, trouble-free cleaning.
The Miele Classic C1 Pure Suction is the most basic, lowest-priced vacuum in Miele’s extensive lineup of canister vacuums. Although it doesn’t work well on thick rugs, it’s exceptionally effective and comfortable to use on bare floors.
The C1 series uses the same 1,200-watt motor that’s found in fancier Miele models (including our upgrade pick for carpets, the Complete C3 Calima), and the same dust-trapping bags and air filter. It uses the AllTeQ floorhead, which features bristles that you can extend or retract, so it’s excellent on bare floors and solid on flat-weave or low-pile rugs, too. The wide floorhead does a superb job of digging dust and pet hair out of cracks and grout lines. (The vacuum is even strong enough to pull debris out of short rugs.) And because the floorhead has no roller, let alone an electric motor, it’s lightweight, low-profile, and easy to maneuver under furniture and into corners.
The Miele Classic C1 is much quieter than many vacuums, at 57 to 68 decibels (depending on the power setting)—compare that with 78 decibels on the Shark, which is more typical of a plug-in vacuum. The canister also rolls very quietly and smoothly on all flooring. The C1 is a bagged vacuum, but in most homes (without too many long-haired pets) the filter bags last for months and trap a huge amount of debris before needing replacement (an indicator on the canister tells you when); a box of four costs about $20.
Miele has a wider service network than any other premium vacuum brand, so you’re more likely to find a place capable of patching up your vacuum if it needs a midlife tune-up. (You should still double-check whether there’s a qualified technician near you.)
You can read more about Miele vacuums and why we think they’re often worth the extra cost in our guide to plug-in vacuums.
This nimble, high-tech model is light, powerful, and easy to maneuver. Its Laser Slim Fluffy cleaner head is specifically designed to snag dust and fur from bare floors.
Soft-fabric brush rolls (they look like they’re covered in velour) are another good way to clean bare floors. They’re mostly found in cordless vacuums, which tend to have less suction than plug-ins, so the extra cleaning action really helps the performance. Fabric brushes can pick up debris of all sizes, everything from dust to leaves or even small mulch, by “hugging” it toward the intake rather than flinging it across the room. But they don’t work well on rugs, and the fabric can get dirty over time and isn’t always easy to clean.
If you’re seeking a cordless vacuum with solid bare-floor performance, we recommend the Dyson V12 that comes with a soft-fabric cleaning head (known as the Fluffy cleaner head, which is specifically designed for bare floors).
Of all the models we’ve tested, the nimble and powerful Dyson V12 Detect Slim comes closest to being the ideal cordless stick vacuum. It has two separate cleaner heads, one of which is specifically designed to target dust and fur on bare floors. The V12 Detect Slim maneuvers easily in awkward spaces and on stairs, and it is very quiet compared with other models. Whereas previous Dyson models featured an uncomfortable trigger-style switch that you had to squeeze to operate the vac, the V12 Detect Slim has an on/off button.
Made of soft microfiber fabric, the Laser Slim Fluffy cleaner head features a laser light that spookily illuminates dark corners, spotlighting dust and fur. The Motorhead, on the other hand, agitates dirt embedded in carpets, preparing it to be ferreted up the tube and into the dustbin. In our testing, we also found that the Fluffy head picked up larger debris that the Motorbar head tended to snowplow. Both V12 Detect Slim cleaner heads swivel 180 degrees, so you can reach into tight corners, around table legs, and between furniture better than with other vacuums we’ve tested.
The V12 Detect Slim easily converts into a handheld vacuum and comes with helpful attachments for tasks around the home and in the car. Its mini motorized brush tool was one of the best we tested for removing pet hair from couches, cat beds, and car upholstery. Its combination tool allowed for quick switching between a wide nozzle and a brush; we found the brush particularly handy for dusting bookshelves and windowsills.
In our guide to cordless stick vacuums, you can read more about Dyson and other brands of cordless vacuums, and why they’re a treat to use but a huge burden on your bank account.
Weak vacuums can get bare floors tidy if you’re patient enough. Robot vacuums are better at this task than humans are: Although they don’t have much suction, they never get bored or distracted. Any of the options in our guide to the best robot vacuums can do a great job of keeping floors clean.
We are currently testing several new vacuums, including the Miele Boost CX1, a bagless canister vacuum designed as a compact option for people living in small spaces, and the Shark Stratos AZ3002, which promises to target bad odors and avoid hair tangling.
We are also trying out the Airsign bagged canister vacuum, which has a sleek look and a focus on sustainability, and the Sebo Felix Premium, one of Sebo’s most powerful (and most stylish) upright models.
We’ll update this guide with our results.
If it’s real hardwood, scratches are rare unless the vacuum itself is damaged. On softer types of stone, tile, or wood flooring, though, a brush roll with abrasive bristles or hard plastic wheels can cause damage.
They get just as dusty as rugs do, but it’s more obvious on bare floors. Here’s a great video from Veritasium on what dust is made out of—it tends to be a lot of dead skin and, ironically, carpet fibers.
Liam McCabe is a former senior staff writer for Wirecutter, and has covered the wild world of appliances since 2011. After testing dozens of robot vacuums, he is neither worried about AI nor holding his breath for self-driving cars. He enjoys visiting factories and learning about regulatory loopholes, and has flooded our testing area only three times.
Sabine Heinlein is a staff writer at Wirecutter. Her work has previously been published by The New York Times, The Guardian, Psychology Today, and many other publications. When she is not following her dream of an immaculate home and a flood-proof basement, she is taking care of her menagerie and creating magical animal quilts.
For a dependable, versatile, and affordable cleaner, we prefer a bagless upright, but we have recommendations for other types of vacuums as well.
Keeping your hardwood floors looking great requires only a small amount of effort.
Miele canister vacuums have a track record of lasting decades, cleaning exceptionally well, and being enjoyable to use.
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Original Developer Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).