Good day friends. I decided to write a help article for those who have somehow lost their data on a flash drive or disk. This article will only talk about operating system Mac. Information on recovering files from a flash drive and on an operating disk Windows system you can find it on the Internet. There is a lot of such information, but very little on Mac OS.

There are quite a lot of programs on Windows that recover data from flash drives and disks, and many of them are free. The same cannot be said about Mac OS. For the latter, there are only a few programs that are guaranteed (well, maybe 90%) to be able to recover your data, unless, of course, your laptop burned out and a hammer didn’t fall on the flash drive.

Programs for data recovery from flash drives and disks

1. Disk Drill

The most famous program in the business for Mac OS and perhaps the most effective. At least judging by the reviews of Mac users, the official website of this program and just people on the Internet. Disk Drill works with MacBook Pro, Air, iPod, Mac Mini and iMac laptops. This infidel program works with both HDD and SSD. As for flash drives, this is generally Disk Drill’s strong point. SD Card, XD Cards, regular Compact flash, MMC Card and many other external storage media are restored by this program. And what is most interesting: a very small percentage of non-recovery, when in many other programs the percentage is quite high (especially in programs for Windows). One gets the feeling that Disk Drill would recover data even from a lost flash drive (this would be very relevant :)))

2. R-Studio

A good program for data recovery on hard drives and external HDDs and flash cards. The program works with almost all known file systems (FAT12/16/32, NTFS and others). Reviews about this program are not bad (I haven’t seen any bad ones). Not the most popular program, but perhaps simply not promoted (unlike disk drill)

3.Mac Data Recovery

A good and also FREE program for data recovery on external media and HDD/SSD drives - Stellar Phoenix Macintosh Data Recovery. Works with any media and any data formats. Restoring files from a flash drive with Macintosh Data Recovery is a pleasure, since, in my opinion, it has the most ideal interface.

4. Data Rescue

Disk recovery is always an unpleasant story, scary, because you don’t know whether you can recover everything or not. Data Rescue is an excellent program for recovering data from a damaged system. If you are covered Mac system OS, then the most important thing in such a situation is to save important files from the disk, and not the system itself. The system can be reinstalled.

Well, actually, I can’t offer any more candidates for data recovery on Mac OS and flash drives, since I don’t know any other programs. In the comments you can write programs that you have used and that really helped. All the best.

Below is a list free programs to recover data on Mac available online. These five applications differ in their characteristics. However, they all have something in common, they are free and therefore useful for the average user.

1. Disk Drill

Disk Drill Basic is the free version of Disk Drill. This application, in addition to the ability to preview recovered files, contains many additional functions, such as Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery, which make it one of the best apps for recovery Mac data.

Recovery Vault- this is essentially an additional layer to the Trash folder that stores a link to deleted data.

Guaranteed Recovery is a background service that saves a copy of every file sent to a user-specified folder. Both utilities significantly reduce the likelihood of losing important data.

Disk Drill can recover data from internal and external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD memory cards, and many other devices that can be connected to your Mac, including iOS devices and Android. His latest version has an extensive database of file signatures and uses very effective scanning algorithms.

Additionally, this app also offers a disk imaging feature, giving the user the option to work with a cloned version of the device/partition without compromising the original source.

Disk Drill in a popular publication

The user interface is very intuitive and Pro version includes efficient support service and the option to purchase a lifetime upgrade that covers all future versions. Overall, Disk Drill is great app and is suitable for both ordinary and professional and corporate users, and the upgrade is really worth the money spent on it.

is not the most powerful free Mac data recovery tool, but it has the advantage of being open source. This means that not only the application, but also its source code is available to users.

PhotoRec can work with OS X, Linux, Free BSD, Net BSD, Open BSD and Windows. It allows you to recover the most common file formats such as JPEG images, MP3 audio files, OpenDocument files and Microsoft Office, PDF documents, HTML pages and ZIP archive files. Files can be recovered from different devices such as digital camera memory cards, USB flash drives, hard drives and CD-ROM.

This free application To recover files, Mac uses a powerful technology known as file carving. This method consists of two stages. First, it looks for the data block or cluster size. If the file system is not damaged, this value is obtained from the superblock (ext2/ext3/ext4) or boot entry volumes (FAT, NTFS).

If this is not possible, the application checks each sector of the device and, using the first ten files found, calculates the block or cluster size. Secondly, the application reads the device, block by block/cluster by cluster, checking the different file signatures available in the application database, thereby collecting and recovering the available files.

Overall this is good tool, if you need to recover some personal files without resorting to a professional application.

3. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is one of the best programs to recover Mac data. The developer has released three different versions: Free, Professional and Unlimited version. The free version allows you to recover a maximum of 2 GB of data.

This free Mac data recovery application can recover data from Mac laptops, desktops, hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, digital camera memory cards, etc. It works on internal drives supported by HFS, as well as FAT/FAT32 file systems used in USB flash drives and external hard drives that can be connected to Apple computer. This application recovers file formats that are used in images, videos, music, and document files.

Designed to recover accidentally deleted files or files lost due to disk formatting, it also covers data corruption caused by a power failure or removing the device without first turning it off.

To sum it up, the free EaseUs data recovery tool is convenient application for accidental unintentional file deletions.

#4. Softtote Mac Data Recovery

This free Mac data recovery software has the advantage that it is offered without any restrictions and includes free technical support.

Can recover lost files from internal and external hard drives. File types include Canon, Fuji, Nikon and the most common Kodak image files. It works on devices with file-based NTFS systems, HFS/HFS+, HFS Wrapper and FAT. The app has the ability to view details such as the size of the image and the date it was created. It also provides the ability to select files to recover.

In short, Softtote can be included in the list of the best Mac data recovery software and although it is not that well known, it is worth a try in case of accidental file loss.

#5. MiniTool Power Data Recovery

This Mac data recovery software has a personal use version that is free to use on one computer only and has a maximum recovery capacity of up to 1GB. Commercial, enterprise and technical versions are also offered.

Allows you to recover photos, music, videos, email, documents, and other types of data from Mac computers or other commonly used storage devices. The free version only supports email.

This data recovery software for Mac works in four different modes. The first one, Undo Deletion, can be used to quickly recover lost data due to accidental deletion. The second, Damaged Partition Recovery, recovers lost data from existing partitions. The third, Lost Partition Recovery, recovers lost data from lost or deleted partitions. Finally, the Digital Media Recovery mode recovers multimedia files from portable storage devices.

Disk Drill – relatively new program for data recovery, developed for two platforms - Windows and Mac OS X. Like any other recovery program of this class, it affects a wide range of devices from which the user can perform recovery: computer and laptop, Windows and Mac, phone and tablet, HDD (SSD) disk or flash drive, etc.

The latest version of the recovery utility at the moment, Disk Drill 3.0, compatible with all operating systems starting from Mac OS X 10.8.5+. By the way, the recently released Sierra is fully supported. As for the Disk Drill for windows edition, all functions are identical to those of Makov. The latest release is called Disk Drill 2.0 for Windows, available for Windows XP and higher (Vista / 7 / 8 / 10).

Key Features of Disk Drill

We will consider key features programs that are equally relevant for all three versions of Disk Drill Pro / Basic, Disk Drill for Windows and Mac OS X.

Recover all file formats and systems

If the developers are not lying, then they Disk program Drill is capable of recovering over 300 file formats from ashes. Including:

  • photos in JPG, PNG or TIFF, pictures AI, PSD and INDD
  • video files - AVI, DV and MP4
  • music files (AIF, MP3 and WAV audio)
  • RAW images – CR2, NEF or DNG
  • documents in DOCX, PPTX and XLSX format (thus, the Disk Drill functionality allows you to recover damaged Word and Excel files).

As for file systems, Disk Drill can read and scan file systems of the following formats for remote data: HFS and HFS+, FAT/FAT32/exFAT, NTFS or EXT3/EXT4. Essentially, this suggests that you can attach any data recovery device to your PC or MacBook. In addition, if you use the Deep Scan option, volumes with a missing or damaged file system may also be able to detect something.

Available scan modes and recovery types

Quick SSD/HDD Scan

Disk drill's quick disk scan mode allows you to return files to your Mac along with their metadata, names and locations. If you recently deleted files, then this is probably one of the optimal options recovery before you formatted the HDD or overwrote a lot of files, which reduced the chances of correct file reconstruction.

SSD/HDD deep scan

Despite the fact that a deep HDD scan will take more time, this mode, built into the disk drill application, allows you to “dig out” what was otherwise impossible. The point is that some files may be damaged, and this requires a careful search for them in the file table. Say, if the system does not read the memory card at all, in Disk Drill you can understand whether it is possible to return the file table or not.

Return of protected data

For Mac computers, this is probably one of the best options if you installed Disk Drill before uninstalling important files, and the Vault and/or Guaranteed Recovery options (they are responsible for saving data on disk) have already been activated within the program.

Universal search and recovery of hard drive partitions

This function allows you to recover mac partitions formatted in HFS+ or NTFS. Fat32 file system support is also available. In all cases, Disk Drill works at a low level with disks as binary elements, quickly scans the disk and looks for signatures, known partition headers. This function is extremely necessary for recovering partitions on a Macbook Air / Pro hard drive or SDD.

HFS+ recovery

The Disk Drill application comes with 3 SSD recovery modules that were created specifically for HFS+ partitions:

  • reconstruction of HFS+ directories
  • search for deleted HFS+ partitions
  • HFS+ extraction

Everything works very quickly, efficiently and brings Mac OS X back to normal.

Supports all storage devices and devices

You can connect a specific device and restore it in a few minutes. In addition to desktop solutions, Disk Drill successfully copes with iOS (iphone recovery function is available) and, of course, Android phones, tablets. By the way, we have already written about the wondershare dr fone program.

The free version of Disk Drill can scan virtual and hard drives - including Macintosh hard drives, external HDDs and SSDs, digital cameras, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Android phones, USB flash drives, Kindles and memory cards.

Disk Drill is great for beginners

Most likely, you will not have any questions as you use the disk drill application. Just click on the restore button - the program will do all the operations for you.

In fact, there is no need to spend hours exploring the functionality of the program; it has a built-in step-by-step wizard that will guide you through the necessary steps in a simple manner.

Additional programs for optimization as part of Disk Drill

The program package includes the so-called. an additional package of free disk tools (Extra Free Disk Tools Disk Drill), designed more for home users, but not for professional experts. You can optimize Mac OS X and reduce its size, find duplicate files on your hard drive, perform a backup, check the status of your SSDs and hard drives, and more.

What tools does the Disk Drill program offer as a significant bonus? These are several free optimization programs useful for comprehensively maintaining order on a computer or laptop:

  1. Disk Health – checks SMART indicators, as well as disk monitoring. All this together will prevent disk failure.
  2. Optimization program Mac Cleanup and Duplicate Finder - analysis hard drive on Mac OS and search for junk files on it, deleting which will only be beneficial and free up space on SSD drive
  3. Recovery Drive - creation bootable flash drive for subsequent recovery of Mac OS X using Disk tools Drill
  4. Data Backup – creating a mirror (byte for byte) copy of a disk or partition on an SSD for data reconstruction

Resume. Thus, Disk Drill is another program for recovering files on SSD and HDD (see analogues), positioning itself as a universal solution for both Mac OS X and Windows. As already noted, there is a Pro version that works without restrictions, while the Basic edition allows you to recover up to 2 GB of files.

No matter why you lost or deleted files on Mac, this article provides best solutions to recover Mac files with or without software. Read on and learn how to recover files and folders on Mac.

How can I recover deleted files on Mac?

I accidentally deleted the entire family folder on my Macbook Pro. I have many treasured family videos and photos in this folder. Which reliable file recovery software can help me recover a deleted folder on Mac?

Is it possible to recover a deleted file on Mac?

Yes, it is. If you backed up the folder using Time Machine, you can restore deleted folders from Time Machine. If you haven't done this, you don't need to worry too much. Indeed, the deleted folder will be marked as inaccessible data on your Mac. So, if the deleted folder has not been overwritten by new data on your Mac, you can recover it using software Recoverit Mac File Recovery.

Part 1. Best Deleted Folder Recovery Software for Mac

Recoverit Data Recovery Mac is such a folder recovery software that helps you recover deleted folder on Mac easily, no matter whether the folders on your Mac are lost due to deletion, formatting or even damage. With it, you can easily recover almost all types of files from lost Mac folder, including photos, audio files, videos, document files, archive files and much more. Currently, this data recovery tool is fully compatible with Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, etc.

Recoverit is the best software to recover deleted files
Recovering deleted or lost folders and files from MacBook is easy, safe and complete.
Recover lost folders due to accidental deletion, formatted hard drive, virus attack or system crash.

Recover deleted files and folders such as photos and documents in all formats with a 96% success rate.

Supported OS: Mac OS 10.14, 10.13, macOS 10.12, OS X 10.11, 10.10, 10.9, 10.8; Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista.

Video tutorial on how to recover deleted files and folders on Mac

Part 2. How to recover deleted folders and files on Mac even from an empty Recycle Bin

How to recover permanently deleted files?

Download and install Recoverit Mac Undelete software on Mac computer. Please do not install the application on a partition from which your folder has been deleted on your Mac.

Step 1 Select a location for deleted files

Run Recoverit data recovery software. To restore deleted files on Mac, you need to select a location or hard drive where your folder or files are deleted or lost.

Step 2 Scan the partition or disk

Recoverit Mac File Recovery will begin scanning the selected partition or hard drive to find deleted files and folders on Mac. While scanning, you can check the scanned files.

Step 3 Preview and Recover Deleted Folder from Mac

After scanning, you can select the recovered deleted folders and view some recoverable files such as photos, pictures and images. Then you just need to mark the folder or files you want to recover and click "Recover" to save them back to your Mac.

Note. To avoid overwriting data, do not save the recovered folder or files back to the original partition.

Part 3. How to Recover Deleted Files on Mac without Software

Apart from Mac data recovery software, we have also found 2 more native solutions for Mac, namely Mac Trash and Time Machine. Unlike Recoverit, they are not always workable and are time consuming in the long run. But in some cases they are really simple and quick. Let's see how they work and why they fail to recover deleted files.

What can cause files to be deleted on Mac?

  • Drag unnecessary items to the Trash in the Dock;
  • Select the file and press "Command-Delete" to delete the file;
  • Select an item in the Trash and select "Delete immediately";
  • Empty the Mac Trash to permanently delete files and folders;
  • Use the keyboard shortcuts “Option + Command + Delete” to permanently delete files;
  • Click the Search icon in the Dock and select Empty Trash;
  • Configure your preference settings: “Remove items from cart after 30 days”;
  • A virus or Mac system crash can delete your files.

Solution 1: Recover files from Recycle Bin on Mac

The easiest way to recover deleted files on Mac should be to recover from the Recycle Bin if the files are deleted by dragging them to the Recycle Bin using "Delete" or pressing "Command-Delete". Otherwise, Solution 1 will not be a workable way to help you recover your permanently deleted files. In any case, you have three options for recovering files from the Recycle Bin.

  • Option 1: Open Trash and drag deleted items from the Trash.
  • Option 2: Open the Trash, select the items you want to recover, and select File > Revert
  • Option 3: Open Trash, select and copy items, paste them somewhere safe and different.

By following the instructions, you can get your deleted files back in a minute. How easy and simple, right? However, if you have deleted files permanently and these methods do not help, use Time Machine or Recoverit Mac File Recovery.

Solution 2: Restoring from a Time Machine backup

Time Machine is another built-in Mac program for backup and data recovery. If you have regular backups of your Mac files, you can always restore them from Time Machine so that your files are not deleted or lost.

  • Make sure your Time Machine backup drive is connected and turned on;
  • Open the folder where your deleted files are stored and click the Time Machine icon;
  • Use the timeline, scroll the screen, or use the search field to find deleted files;
  • Select the files you want to recover and press Spacebar to preview;
  • Click "Recover" to recover files from Time Machine.

Recover files on mac with software

When you realize that files or folders you need have been deleted from your Mac or external device, you should check the Recycle Bin or Time Machine Backup first, which can save you a lot of time and effort. If the solutions do not work, please contact Recoverit Mac File Recovery immediately. This is yours last method recover lost or deleted files on Mac. It supports Mac data recovery in any situation.

Note. Recover Lost Mac Data under Mac OS X 10.13 (High Sierra)

Due to requirement macOS High Sierra (macOS 10.13) Mac users do not have access to the built-in system disk from any applications. Therefore, if you need to recover lost data from system disk Under macOS 10.13, first disable System Integrity Protection.

How to disable "System integrity protection"?

Please follow the instructions below.

  • Step 1 When you hear the startup tone, restart your Mac and simultaneously hold down the “Command + R” keys to boot OS X into recovery mode.
  • Step 2 When the OS X Utilities screen appears, instead open the Utilities menu at the top of the screen and select Terminal.
  • Step 3 In the Terminal window, type “csrutil disable” and press Enter, then restart your Mac.

Conclusion

This is how you can recover deleted files on a Mac.

He told me how you can recover deleted files on a Mac for free using the Disk Drill utility. The method works with any hard drives and flash drives.

What should you do if you accidentally deleted a file and there is no backup copy? What if the backup disk itself becomes damaged and is no longer recognized by the Mac? Maybe your camera card or flash drive has stopped being read? There are many options. But in all these cases, Disk Drill will help you recover the data.

What information can Disk Drill recover?

It doesn’t matter at all on which disk the files were lost. If you can physically connect it to your Mac, then Disk Drill will get to work. Even if the computer can't read it. The use cases are as follows:

  • Files have disappeared from your internal storage, external storage, USB flash drives or memory cards;
  • The section on external drive and is no longer mounted (often happens when the disk is removed incorrectly);
  • The music has disappeared from the MP3 player or e-reader a la Kindle;
  • The system has stopped recognizing the memory card, flash drive or hard drive.

Disk Drill works with all popular file systems:

  • HFS/HFS+
  • FAT/FAT32/exFAT
  • EXT3/EXT4

Deep Scan works even with damaged or missing file systems.


How to use Disk Drill

By default, Disk Drill scans your drive and shows all the deleted information it can find. If the file has just been deleted, then the function will handle this Quick Scan(Quick Scan). If not, then it goes Detailed scan(Deep Scan).


Since deleted files lose all metainformation, all found files will have incorrect (random) names, hierarchy and creation/modification date. To find required file, you need to sort the information by type and size, and then by the function quick view find the required file.


To avoid this hassle, Disk Drill offers several interesting features. These are the ones I forgot to enable first, so don’t repeat my mistake.

  • Recovery Vault- stores a copy of the metadata of all deleted files. If something happens, the names, creation dates and their hierarchy will be preserved during restoration. The function is generally unpretentious to resources. A metadata archive for 10,000 files takes approximately 60 megabytes.
  • Guaranteed Recovery- stores invisible copies of all files that end up in the trash. If you deleted something you needed and then regretted it, Guaranteed Recovery will restore any file without any problems. In the Disk Drill settings, you can set yourself how much space you don’t mind. hidden copies files from the recycle bin and how long they should be kept.

Both of these features work even in the free version of Disk Drill. So, you can add an additional layer of protection to your files by simply setting trial version. But you will have to pay for the recovery function itself.

The only thing you need to remember is that Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery only work with HFS & HFS+ and FAT partitions. They cannot be enabled for other sections.

How to recover deleted files from a flash drive

To demonstrate the work, I took and formatted my 64 GB flash drive. Initially, it only featured the season of The Man in the High Castle. I don’t even remember what was stored there and deleted before.


A quick disk scan took about 15 minutes. As a result, Disk Drill found:

  • all 13 episodes of the series;
  • 18 documents from the sketch editor;
  • 208 music tracks in mp3;
  • 232 photographs;
  • some videos in 3gp (I have no idea how they ended up there);
  • several videos in mov format.

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