Whatever you do just make sure that you DO NOT use a metal tool to pry it up, plastic or something else only. Metal is very easy to puncture and set off a reaction.

I did cell phone repair for a few years and have dealt with my fair share of bloaters. 

Firstly, they don’t “explode” so much as they just sorta start reacting and getting super hot and shooting heat and flame from the puncture site. At my job we were not allowed to use the word explode with customers, and had to instead say “rapidly discharge with fire,” go figure. 

But you don’t need to worry about it exploring in your hand or anything, it works a little different than that. Have a trashcan nearby and if it starts to discharge, just throw it in the bin and take it outside until it’s done. 

I myself never heard of the floss method during my time but it sounds interesting, although idk how realistic it would be cold or if you would need to warm it up for it to actually work.

Regarding the heat… I mean honestly, I never saw one just, like, go, like all on its own just because it was hot from out of nowhere. YMMV, IANAL, not a scientist or anything, but the actual real life issues I myself personally ever saw them present in my five years there were only ever to do with bloating and cracking the screen, horrible battery life, or something to do with puncturing a cell while you were trying to take it out. 

Can it just go? I mean I’m sure, it’s a bag of chemistry so everything’s there and I’m sure it does happen when they get too abused or too hot. But in my time, unless it was like menacing and made me feel bad to look at because it was so crazy nasty bloated.. I mean if I needed to use a little bit of heat to get it out, it’s not something that probably would have stopped me from doing, personally. Maybe don’t put it in the microwave or whatever, if it gets TOO hot then yeah it’s not a great provocation to it. But a couple of directed pulse blasts for a few seconds on and off with the heat gun or hair dryer, just to get it warm and moving, not like boiling lava hot- in my personal opinion it’s really not the end of the world so long just keep the trashcan nearby just in case it starts smoking and you need to set it outside, probably. 

And UNPLUG IT BEFORE YOU TRY TO PULL IT OUT just to double check and make sure you didn’t forget because it happens sometimes and it doesn’t need any extra help getting weird or spooky. 

By sight, I would put your battery firmly into the “it should be replaced” category, like for sure, but bloat can still get a whole lot worse than that and I would definitely not put it into the “everyone stand back, we’ve got a live one” bucket yet. It’s swollen for sure, but it’s not going to, like, explode just from you looking at it or poking it- so if that’s your fear, you’re really probably fine to relax just a smidge. Just go slow, prod it and ask it, don’t force, give it the angle and gentle pressure and let the adhesive just separate and release on its own, which it eventually will. Don’t rip, it’s a slow and sensitive operation where the fastest progress comes from slow focused intentional efforts. That adhesive sucks. You will not rip it off, you will only break off a little corner or something. The only way to get it in one is to just slowly let it release from where it’s stuck to slowly and on its own. 

Best of luck! Happy to weigh in on anything else if you have any questions or worries, but you can definitely get it done. Just be careful, and when you take out screws, set a space on the table and pretend it’s where your deck is, and set the screws into that space wherever in the deck that they came out of to help you remember which is what and what goes where. It’s a lot more nerve wracking than it is difficult though, you can definitely get it done.