Recuva is the very best free data recovery software tool available, hands down. It's very easy to use but has many optional advanced features as well. Recuva can recover files from hard drives, external drives ( USB drives, etc.), BD/DVD/CD discs, and memory cards. The Best Data Recovery Software for Windows 10: Our Picks in 2019. We’ve tested dozens of recovery software and come up with the following options. Due to the nature of data recovery, and the complexities of data loss scenarios, your results may vary. Computer data recovery software, free download. Computer data recovery software is an amazing tool that can help users to restore lost data via simple steps. No matter what the reason of your data loss, there are chances to successfully recover missing files from computer hard disk as long as lost files are not overwritten. Now, let's have a. When data is lost, stay calm and download this free data recovery software from Stellar to recover your photos, videos, documents, emails, audio files, etc. Become a data recovery expert with our DIY free recovery software and get back lost files from the comfort of your home or office. List of top 10 best data recovery software that helps when you want to recover data from crashed PC / HDD / Mac or undelete accidentally deleted data.
You've Lost a File, Now What?
Nothing can make you feel more helpless than trying to rescue a file from a failing PC, Mac, or external drive. Maybe it's the trove of family photos that suddenly can't be found in its folder, or the important documents you scanned and saved as PDFs to a now-failing hard drive. Whatever the case, you'll do anything—anything—to get those files back. Relax; you don't have to offer up your firstborn or a kidney to do so. A Data recovery utility may be just the solution you need to get you out of the pickle you find yourself in.
What Can Data Recovery Software Can Do?
Data recovery software can be almost miraculously useful in some situations, and entirely useless in others. The best of the file-recovery apps that we reviewed make it effortless to recover files from traditional spinning hard drives, flash drives, SD cards, and other forms of portable storage, including your phone. They can also retrieve some or all of the data that you otherwise can't access on a failing CD or DVD disk. What they can't do—because no consumer-level software can do it—is recover a file that you deleted from the solid-state drive (SSD) that's probably in your laptop if you bought it in the past year or so, and possibly in your desktop if it's also of recent vintage. For SSD data recovery, you'll need to send your disk to a recovery lab; more on that below. Many of the apps we reviewed have both Windows and Mac versions, and they may be priced slightly differently.
Where data recovery software is most useful is when you mistakenly formatted a thumb drive or a media card without remembering to grab the files already stored there, or if you mistakenly deleted files from your phone. This is the kind of mishap that can happen to anyone. Advanced users often get overeager about emptying the Recycle Bin, and want to get back files they didn't intend to delete forever. If you're using a traditional spinning hard drive, the best recovery software can restore those lost files. A few advanced users—you know who you are—have even deleted whole disk partitions by mistake when performing housekeeping on their hard disks. Again, with a traditional spinning hard drive, recovery software can bring it back in one piece.
All these apps offer to recover lost or deleted files. Some include the ability to make a disk image (or full clone) of a drive so that you can try to recover files from the image or clone instead of from the disk itself. This is an essential feature if you're trying to recover files from a disk that's physically failing, and may continue to fail if your recovery software keeps trying to read from it.
Some data recovery apps also include the opposite of file recovery—permanent file deletion. When you want to make sure that no one can retrieve your data, you can tell these apps to overwrite the data with enough random bytes to make the original data unreadable. Keep in mind that government agencies have tools that can retrieve data from almost anything, but these apps make it impractical even for expert thieves to recover private information from stolen or discarded disk drives.
Where Software Fails, Labs May Succeed
Several of the data recovery apps we reviewed come from companies that offer laboratory-based data recovery services—always at a high price. If you can't recover data from your drive with an app, then you can consider getting it recovered by an in-lab service. All of these services claim to recover data even from SSDs. We haven't tested these claims, but all these services won't charge you unless they actually retrieve your data, so it may be worth looking into them in case of real emergencies. Those services—Kroll, Prosoft, and Seagate—that offer mail-in recovery labs are noted in the table above, and you can read about the details of the particular offerings in the full reviews of those services.
A Caveat About SSDs
One failing that bothered us in all these apps—including our top picks—is that they didn't even warn us that we couldn't recover files from an SSD. It's easy for an app to tell whether a drive uses spinning-platter or SSD technology, and easy to tell whether TRIM technology is active in a drive. All of the software we reviewed, both on the Mac and PC, misleadingly told us that they were able to recover deleted files from SSDs—and then disappointed us by providing corrupt and unusable files instead of the ones we wanted. We hope that the next generation of data recovery software is redesigned to make it clear that we can't hope for file recovery on SSDs unless the deleted files are safely in the Recycle Bin—where, of course, they're easy to find without using recovery software.
The reason that data recovery software can't recover data from SSDs is simple. Virtually all current SSDs use so-called TRIM technology that increases efficiency and disk life by clearing disk sectors that are not being used. One result of this is that the data can't be recovered by software, even if the file system retains its record of the sectors where the data used to be. With traditional spinning hard drives and USB flash drives, file recovery is relatively simple. Recovery software can find the location of a file's data even if you've emptied the Recycle Bin, often even if you've reformatted the disk. But once a file is deleted from an SSD, and the Recycle Bin has been emptied, there's no hope of ever getting that file back again, unless you have a backup somewhere.
Which Data Recovery Software Do You Need?
We found two Editors' Choice data recovery apps for Windows: Kroll Ontrack EasyRecovery and Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery. Ontrack was the best performer in our tests, very slightly outclassing Stellar Phoenix in the number of files it recovered, but Stellar Phoenix has by far the best interface of anything we tried. On the Mac side Alsoft DiskWarrior is an Editors' Choice, for its ability to rebuild entire Mac directories. Prosoft Data Rescue is an excellent choice for getting back the odd document or spreadsheet that you accidentally deleted from your Mac.
Lost data can cause financial problems and emotional heartache. You probably have hundreds of photos and sound files that you can't bear to lose. A reliable backup system is the best option, but data recovery software is the second-best, and sometimes the only, choice available. Look into our suggestions now, so you'll be ready if disaster strikes.
Once you've got your files back, you'll want to regularly back up your work. Our roundups of the Best External Hard Drives, the Best Backup Software, and the Best Cloud Backup Services are good places to start.
Best Data Recovery Software Featured in This Roundup:
Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Review
MSRP: $99.00Pros: Recovers files from all media. Preview feature lets you know in advance which files can be recovered. Includes disk-testing and cloning functions.
Cons: Lists as recoverable too many files that are not. No automatic display of deleted files list. Poor multi-monitor support.
Bottom Line: Stellar Data Recovery Premium recovers lost data files from all media, and it lets you know in advance which files are recoverable. However, this utility is too often unable to deliver on its recovery promises.
Read ReviewProsoft Data Rescue (for Mac) Review
MSRP: $99.00Pros: Excellent file recovery. Integrated chat button, available call center, and physical recovery lab. Generous licensing.
Cons: Without advanced filtering, it can be difficult to sift through results. Hides some valuable features.
Bottom Line: After fifteen years in the business, Prosoft Data Rescue continues to offer one of the most powerful and accessible tools for data recovery.
Read ReviewAlsoft DiskWarrior (for Mac) Review
MSRP: $119.00Pros: Repairs and rebuilds Mac directories to improve system reliability and performance. Useful hardware and maintenance tools. Effective for traditional hard disk and solid-state drives. Easy to use. Affordable.
Cons: The OS X Recovery partition complicates booting into the utility.
Bottom Line: While other data recovery utilities can scan disks to recover lost or deleted files, DiskWarrior is unrivaled in its ability to repair and rebuild the Mac directory.
Read ReviewProsoft Data Rescue PC4 Review
MSRP: $69.00Pros: High-powered file recovery. Fast and efficient scanning. Saves file-scan data for use in later sessions.
Cons: Over-complex, under-informative interface. Option to create disk-copy clones rather than faster, more manageable disk images. Licensed to five drives only.
Bottom Line: Prosoft Data Rescue is among the best when it comes to raws Platinum edition. Would benefit from advanced filtering. License transfer is onerous. Ineffective for recovering files on solid-state hard drives.
Bottom Line: While it doesn't provide the most sophisticated tools for filtering recovery results, Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery offers an easy on-ramp to Mac data recovery.
Read ReviewCleverFiles Disk Drill Pro (for Mac) Review
MSRP: $89.00Pros: Excellent file recovery with best-in-class file signature support. Superb filtering. Unique features, including data protection and iOS recovery. Affordable.
Cons: Ineffective for recovering files on solid-state drives. Some features less useful than others.
Bottom Line: If you have Mac with a traditional hard drive, Disk Drill Pro offers one of the most advanced data recovery utilities available.
Read ReviewKroll Ontrack EasyRecovery Review
MSRP: $79.00Pros: Impressively fast, extremely thorough data recovery. Rich in technically advanced options. Includes secure-delete feature. Backed up by Ontrack's mail-in disk recovery.
Cons: Unclear interface. Lacks built-in previewer. No option to create a disk image from a failing disk.
Bottom Line: Kroll Ontrack EasyRecovery is the most powerful, thorough data recovery software we've tested, and it's blazing fast, too. Its only real drawback is a sometimes-daunting interface.
Read ReviewRecuva Review
MSRP: $0.00Pros: Low price. Free version available. Beautifully clear interface design. Preview screen.
Cons: Can't recover as many files as high-priced rivals.
Bottom Line: Recuva is attractively priced and easy to use, though it can't dig in quite as deeply as higher-priced data recovery software.
Read ReviewSeagate Premium File Recovery Suite (for Mac) Review
MSRP: $99.00Pros: Good results. Fast scanning. Parallel Mac/Windows experience. Available in-house data recovery lab and insurance policies (Rescue Plans). No learning curve.
Cons: Some glitches with STX server during testing. Stingy licensing. Ineffective for recovering files on solid-state hard drives.
Bottom Line: While it's not as feature-rich as some competing tools, Seagate Premium File Recovery Suite provides a simple, fast, and capable utility backed by one of the largest names in data recovery.
Read ReviewSeagate Premium Recovery Suite Review
MSRP: $79.99Pros: Spacious, clear interface. Thumbnail previews for recovered files. Direct link to Seagate's in-lab recovery service.
Cons: Restrictive license. Recovered fewer files than competitive products. Lacks CD/DVD recovery option. No disk-image creation. Lacks secure-delete feature.
Bottom Line: Seagate is a major player in the disk drive industry, but its Premium Recovery Suite consumer-level data recovery software has a very restrictive licensing model.
Read Review
Best free data recovery software
Read on for our detailed analysis of each app
There's nothing worse than discovering that you've lost files, either because you accidentally deleted them, or even because of a harddrive failure. It happens to most people at some point, and afterward you quickly learn the need to set up some form of sturdy backup solution.
However, even backups can fail for some reason or another, but whether it's your first time or if it's happened before it's still a horrible situation to face.
While there are paid-for file recovery solutions available there are also some free ones that might be worth trying out first.
After all, if you just accidentally deleted some files you needed instead there's a good chance you'll be able to recover them from your harddrive and that free data recovery software options might work for you.
Even still, note that some free data recovery utilities, while well-meaning, may not be powerful enough to do the job for more serious problems. So we've put together the best on the market so you can try and see which one works best for you.
In the meantime, consider backing up to the cloud with one of these cloud backup solutions, to provide better redundancy in future.
- We’ve also rounded up the best disk cloning software
- Want your company or services to be added to this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to desire.athow@futurenet.com with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line.
1. Recuva
Flexible free data recovery software for any emergency
One of the best things about Recuva is the wealth of ways to use it: manual scanning, wizard-driven scanning, and via the context menu.
For anyone who feels as though they need a little help using the software, the wizard is on hand to provide guidance, but there is also the option of taking manual control of the scanning and recovery process. The scan can be customized to look in particular locations, or for particular types of files, and Recuva uses a traffic light guide to how likely it is that you'll be able to recover an item intact.
You also have the option of right clicking a folder or the Recycle Bin if you know you have deleted a file from a particular location. It's all very easy, and the results speak for themselves.
Upgrading to Recuva Professional adds the ability to work with virtual hard drives, access to premium support, and automatic software updates. These are nice additions, but the free version of Recuva will be plenty for most users.
2. Wise Data Recovery
Intuitive data recovery software to get you out of sticky situations
When it comes to ease of use, it's hard to beat Wise Data Recovery. Although this free data recover software doesn't have a wizard-led interface, there are no complicated configuration settings to worry about either.
Tracking down recoverable data is a simple matter of selecting the drive you want to check and clicking 'Scan'. Alternatively, you can use keywords to search for recoverable files so you don’t have to wade through quite so many results.
Whichever route you choose, recoverable data is presented in an Explorer-like tree structure that makes it easy to tell where it was originally stored. Like all the best free data recovery software, Wise Data Recovery uses a traffic light system to indicate the health of files (and therefore how likely it is that you'll be able to recover them intact, and there's a file preview feature so you can identify files that have been detected.
You can recover individual files, or entire folders at once, but selecting numerous files in several locations means performing several operations.
3. PC Inspector File Recovery
Recover data from lost partitions if the interface doesn't put you off
PC Inspector File Recovery goes further than many data recovery tools in that it will detect partitions that have been lost, even if the boot sector or file system has been damaged or deleted. This could be a real life-saver in an emergency, potentially helping you get data back even if your hard drive is not visible within Windows.
Beginners might find the terminology and design of PC Inspector File Recovery intimidating, and even some more advanced users may find the workflow a little confusing to start with. Take some time to learn your way around it, and you'll find a powerful data recovery program – but one that seems to get better results with FAT and FAT32 drives.
4. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free
Finding recoverable data with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free is very simple: select a drive or folder and wait for a few minutes while it completes its scan.
You can browse through the recoverable data using a Windows Explorer style interface and filter them by type or opt to search for specific files. Data recovery is effective, but the Deep Scan option is very slow, so you'll need to be patient.
The installation of this software is a mixed experience. The installer, importantly, advises not to install to the same drive that you want to recover data from because this could overwrite data and render it unrecoverable. It also, sadly, tries to enrol you in a customer experience improvement program, without explaining what this entails.
It's worth noting that the free version only allows for the recovery of up to 2GB of data, so it's not going to be suitable for all circumstances, but it will be enough to get you out of most sticky situations.
5. TestDisk and PhotoRec
A powerful and flexible data two-part recovery toolkit
Presented as a pair of tools rather than a single integrated solution, TestDisk and PhotoRec together can recover data from both lost partitions and files.
Free Computer Data Recovery Software
TestDisk takes care of the partition side of things. The fact that it's a command line tool with no graphical interface might off-putting at first. If can set this to one side though, there's help on hand to guide you through the process of working with your drives. TestDisk offers support for so many file systems, it should cater for most eventualities.
PhotoRec is the component for recovering files. It's available with a command lint interface, but unlike TestDisk there's also a GUI for less confident users. It may not be as intuitive as some of the other recovery software in this listing, but it's effective.
PhotoRec is cross-platform and can be run as a portable app from a USB stick, which means you don't have to install it on your PC and risk accidentally overwriting the data you want to recover.
6. Stellar Data Recovery
Stellar Data Recovery is a free all-in-one data recovery software suite that offers a range of features. As with most programs, it can recover files of folders that have been accidentally deleted, even when emptied from the Recycle Bin.
However, additional options available include the ability to recover data from missing or lost partitions, not least due to having a corrupted harddrive. It can even recover data after a full system crash, even if the harddrive will no longer boot.
On top of this, Stellar Data Recovery can also recover files and folders that have been lost, deleted, or otherwise damaged by a computer virus or other malware.
Running the software is as simple as clicking 'select', then 'scan' then recovering the files you need. You can recover any file type, and even recover files from other storage media, such as USB drives and SD cards.
If this all sounds too good to be true then the caveat is that there's a 1GB limit for the free version of the software. To recover more you will need the standard edition which retails for $49.95 (£42) and allows unlimited data to be recovered.
Computer All Data Recovery software, free download
Alternatively, there is a professional edition available which has advanced options, such as disk images and CD/DVD recovery.
- To avoid data loss, check out our guide to the best free backup software