Data Recovery Software for Mac – The best free Mac data recovery software available on the internet is described below. These five apps differ in their features. Though, they all have 1 thing in common: they are free and, therefore, valid for the average user.
Table of Contents
Brief Review: Mac Data Recovery Software Test Statistics
Number of instruments tested – 15
How long do we try – 3 weeks
Operating system version – macOS 12.6 Monterrey
Free program with minimal cost – Average cost $89
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Disk Drill for Mac
Disk Drill is an accessible data recovery application for Mac OS X. Disk Drill Basic, in addition to previewing recovered files, contains several other features, such as Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery, recovery of lost partitions, disk creation boot etc. one of the best Mac data recovery applications available.
The Disk Drill works on internal and external hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, and many other devices connected to a Mac, including iOS and Android.
Its latest version has an extensive database of file signatures that can be recovered from drives even after formatting and uses very efficient and fast scanning algorithms. Disk Drill is constantly updated and maintained by a growing team and covers cases of data corruption as a result of a power outage or removing a device without first unmounting it.
Free features:
- The Recovery Vault is an advanced sub-level of the Recycle Bin that stores links to deleted data.
- Guaranteed Recovery is a contextual service that saves a copy of each file in a user-specified folder. Both data protection modules significantly reduce the possibility of irrecoverable loss of important data.
- Data backup feature allows users to recover lost data from a byte-cloned version of the device/partition without compromising the original storage source.
- Also, various additional tools like Disk Health Monitor, Emergency Recovery Boot Drive, Time Machine Recovery, Duplicate File Finder, and Mac Cleaner are free.
✅ Advantages:
- The tool can view all file formats supported by macOS.
- The software program runs on M1 devices and can scan protected M1 or T2 system drives.
- Files can be filtered, viewed and previewed during scanning.
- A huge number of RAW file formats are reinforced, which can be found using the raw image scanner.
⛔ Cons:
- Telephone support is not offered.
- The tool provides only limited support for RAID arrays.
“Disk Drill for macOS updated to support Apple Silicon Mac” – Filipe Esposito, 9to5mac.com
Verdict:
Disk Drill successfully manages the balance of basic and advanced features for casual, professional, and business users, justifying the money spent on upgrades.
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Photorec for Mac
PhotoRec is not the utmost powerful free Mac data recovery tool, but its advantage is that it is open source. It means that not only the app but also the source code is available to the public.
OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Windows may all used with PhotoRec. Because it is capable of improving the most widely used file formats, with Microsoft Office files, PDF documents, ZIP files, OpenDocument, JPEG photos, and MP3 audio files. From a variety of devices, with hard drives, USB drives, and memory cards from digital cameras, files can restore.
Free features:
This free Mac file recovery app uses a powerful technology known as file slicing. This method has two steps. First, it finds the size of a data block or cluster. If the file system is intact, this value is taken from the superblock (ext2/ext3/ext4) or the volume’s boot record (FAT, NTFS). If this is not possible, the application checks each sector of the device and calculates the block or cluster size from the first ten files it finds.
Second, the application reads the device, block by block/group by group, checking the various available file signatures in the application’s database, thus collecting and retrieving the open files. While it is not clear how many of these file signatures are known to the application.
✅ Advantages:
- This is a free tool for the user.
- A widespread variety of storage devices, file types, and formats are supported.
⛔ Cons:
- Users must accept a complex command line interface to recover lost data.
- Some knowledge of the underlying disk system is required to use the tool.
- The software has not been updated for several years.
Verdict:
PhotoRec is an excellent tool to use when you need to recover some personal files without resorting to a professional application.
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EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is another of the best Mac data recovery apps. The developer has released 3 different versions: Free Trial, Pro, and Unlimited.
Free features:
The free data recovery software for Mac can recover data from laptops, desktops, memory cards, hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, digital cameras, etc. The free version is limited to 2 GB of recovered data. Mac. Works with internal HFS+ and FAT/FAT32 drives used in USB sticks. And also, external hard drives connected to an Apple computer.
The Easeus tool recovers the most used file formats in image, video, music and document files. It is mainly designed to recover files lost due to accidental deletion or disk formatting.
✅ Advantages:
- The quick scan process quickly recovers lost data.
- Scan results are efficiently classified, making it easy to find items to recover.
⛔ Cons:
- Preview is not available for all standard file formats.
- It is challenging to disable user data collection by default.
Verdict:
The EaseUS Free Data Recovery Tool is a handy application for accidental and unintentional file deletion.
Choose the Best Data Recovery Software for Mac
Choosing the best Mac data recovery software can be daunting as there are so many seemingly excellent options available. To help you narrow down the available data recovery software for Mac. Since, Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac is the most important selection criteria you should pay attention to:
Productivity
The best Mac file recovery apps have been perfecting their data recovery algorithms for years to find all your deleted files quickly and reliably. Since data recovery is a task that requires urgency, it makes sense to choose the most functional application available and recover all deleted data on the first try.
File System Support
Mac users often format drives and volumes using Apple File System (APFS), MS-DOS (FAT), FAT32, HFS+ (Mac OS Extended), and also exFAT file systems, so be sure to choose a recovery software application for data that supports them. Although, if you also want to recover Windows drives, the application must support NTFS.
Compatible with mac OS version
With the latest version of macOS, Apple has made some pretty significant changes to make the operating system more secure for users. Unfortunately, many Mac data recovery tools developers have yet to update their applications to support the latest versions of Apple’s operating system.
Support for File Types
There are thousands of file formats, and no data recovery software supports them. However, some solutions can recover almost all file formats you are likely to encounter. We strongly recommend that you choose them over applications that can only recover a few commonly used file formats.
Feature Set
Although all Mac data recovery software applications can recover deleted files, some of them have many additional features that make the recovery process easier and more likely to complete successfully, such as the ability to view a preview of deleted files and recover defective files and damaged and formatted devices. o Scan RAW and lost partitions. You can even find recovery apps that can be used as effective backup solutions, and giving you more value for your money.
Price
The prices of file recovery applications for Mac OS X vary widely, and it is not true that the more expensive applications are always better than the cheaper or free ones. Particularly attractive are paid data recovery apps that allow you to view recoverable files and assess their data recovery performance without spending a single dollar. Note that some recovery apps only charge once for a lifetime license, while others charge their users monthly or yearly, increasing their price significantly over time.
Security
Not all software applications are safe, and data recovery software is no exception. While you can use all of the apps listed in this article without a problem, the same cannot be said for many of the lesser-known data recovery solutions which can be found online.
Keep the above criteria in mind when choosing file recovery software for Mac. You will have no problem selecting the best solution and recovering your data in the shortest time.
Frequent Questions
Which is the Best Data Recovery Software for Mac in 2022?
Here are the best Mac data recovery software apps in 2022:
- Disk Drill for Mac – Best for SD cards and USB drives;
- PhotoRec for Mac is the best free software;
- EaseUS Mac Data Recovery Wizard – Best Customer Support;
- DMDE for Mac – Best for professional use;
- Data Rescue for Mac is the best money-back guarantee.
You can see, Disk Drill tops the list and offers excellent data recovery performance along with an easy-to-use user interface that looks like Apple designed it in-house.
How much does MAC Data Recovery Software Cost?
They are completely free Mac data recovery software applications out there, but most of them have certain limitations and require users to purchase a license to remove them. Although, The cost of a Mac data recovery software license varies widely, but the average is around $100.
Is there Unlimited Accessible Data Recovery Software for MAC?
Yes, there are. PhotoRec (TestDisk) is an open-source data recovery software for Mac, Windows, Linux and *BSD that you can freely download and use to recover most file formats without restrictions. However, you should note that PhotoRec does not have a graphical user interface and does not offer additional features that require it, such as the ability to preview files before recovery.