Contrary to popular belief, files are very recoverable after deletion. This is from your computer’s hard drive or external storage drives and SD cards, smartphones, digital cameras, etc. Applies to files deleted from devices. And yes, files removed from your computer’s Trash or Recycle Bin can also be recovered. Thanks to data recovery software; These tools are life savers. In this post, we compile some of the best data recovery software available for Windows and macOS users.
When a file is deleted from your computer or external storage, it does not disappear completely. The file remains on the disk/drive from which it was deleted. What happens is that once deleted, the file becomes immediately (permanently) inaccessible until the space it previously occupied on disk is used up (read: overwritten) by new files. Data recovery tools scan the affected disk for missing or deleted pieces of data and restore as many files as possible.
Listed below are some of the best data recovery tools for Mac and Windows computers.
1. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
The simple and intuitive interface of this software is unrivaled. On the homepage, pretty much everything you need to recover data from your PC’s hard drive or external storage devices stands out. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard takes a 3-step approach to data recovery: scan, preview and recovery.
Grouping the data into Path and Type is also great. This makes it easy to find and recover data from the original file path or by file type (audio, video, documents, email, etc.). However, you may not need to scan hundreds or thousands of documents, as there is a search box and search filter that makes it even easier to find files by size, creation date, and more. If you can’t find a deleted file, look for folders labeled ‘RAW Files’ or ‘Tag RAW Files’. These are where files that have lost their original name or path are stored.
Overall, the software’s storage scanning process was fast, and I also like that you can preview data (images, audio, videos, etc.) before recovering it. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard software is available in a free model for both Windows and Mac computers. With the free version, you can only recover up to 2GB of data. Upgrade to a paid plan (starting at $89.95), cloud storage account with data recovery, data protection, etc. It gives you access to advanced features such as
The software can be downloaded from PCs and memory cards, as well as audio devices (iPods, MP4 players, etc.), video cameras, etc. It can also be used to recover data.
2. Star Data Recovery
Unlike EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, this software takes a targeted approach to data recovery. Instead of scanning your disk and drives for all deleted data, Stellar Data Recovery gives you the freedom to customize your scan for specific data types. Suppose you want to recover a video from a pen drive. You just have to launch the app, select Videos, uncheck all other options and run a recovery scan. We find this really useful and time-saving.
By choosing the exact file format(s) you want to recover, you can better microfilter the process much faster and more precise. For example, you can tell the tool to scan and recover only videos in MP4 formats. Or just pictures in PNG format. It’s that simple. Although you have to launch the settings menu of the application to do the customization.
We found it particularly interesting that the tool supports multiple languages such as English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.
3. Disc Drill
Described (by the developers) as the “ultimate DIY data recovery toolkit”, Disk Drill does more than just basic data recovery for hard drives and memory cards. There are special in-app sections to recover deleted files for iOS (iPhones and iPad) and Android devices. Disk Drill for Mac computers allows you to extract data from your PC’s Time Machine backup. The tool uses multiple recovery methods to help users recover deleted ones. We expand this below.
Disk Drill has three (3) recovery methods:
- Quick scan: This method is fast and ideal for recovering recently deleted files. Maybe files you just removed from your computer’s Trash or Recycle Bin. We have used this and it works great. However, it is worth noting that the effectiveness of this recovery method largely depends on the erasure time. In terms of context, a file you deleted 2 hours ago using Quick Scan is more likely to recover than a file deleted 48 hours ago.
- Allocate Existing Data: Use this recovery method if you cannot find files in your computer’s File Explorer (for Windows) or Finder (for Mac).
- All Recovery Methods: It uses a combination of the above two methods to find and recover deleted and missing data from your hard drive and external storage devices.
You are free to choose your preferred data recovery method. But when in doubt, we recommend choosing ‘All recovery methods’ and let Disk Drill do its thing. Scanning your disk may take up to a minute (depending on how much data you have on it), but Disk Drill lets you quickly review the items found even before the scan is finished. The first limitation of this software is the design of the search tool.
When you search for a file, Disk Drill does not display the recovered data with matching words or phrases. Instead, it simply directs you to the path where you’ll find the search results. I had to manually open folders and subfolders to find files matching our search query. Other than that, everything else worked great. The file filter is quite advanced. You can filter files by size or modification date. The filter tool also lets you hide duplicates from search results.
Other additional tools Disk Drill offers include Data Shredder, Duplicate Finder, Disk Cleaner, etc. is found. Like the other tools in this list, Disk Drill lets you recover data for free. This brings us to the second limitation: there is a 500MB recovery limit fixed to free usage. Paid plans with unlimited recovery start at $89.
4. Wondershare Recovery
The last on this list is Recoverit. Developed by Wondershare, this tool has equally everything you need to recover deleted images, videos, documents, audios and multiple file types from your Windows PC, Mac, external hard drives, USB storage and SD cards. Recoverit is lightweight and very easy to use.
The tool displays the automatically detected storage drives connected to your computer and categorizes them in the application’s clipboard. The ‘Select Folder’ feature on the home page allows you to drill down the recovery scan down to the specific path/folder of your storage disk. This is about the only tool on this list that supports this type of micro-recovery. One (missing) feature is the ability to simultaneously scan multiple drives for deleted data. It’s also worth noting that Recoverit does not save scan results.
After scanning your storage disks, Recovery partitions detected files as file types and recovery paths/folder. The software also tags file systems and raw files efficiently so you can easily find files without a path. There is also Preview support for easy file identification.
Find Loss
It doesn’t matter if you delete files or accidentally lose them due to disk failure or malware attack. These softwares are equipped to recover data from hard drives, memory cards and other storage disks/devices. And they do it efficiently. However, it is worth noting that it will be difficult (or impossible) to recover overwritten deleted data. Try any of these tools and leave a comment below to let us know about your experience.
Next: Read the guide below to learn more about the Windows File Recovery tool, how it works, what it can or cannot do, and how to use it.
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