Best Mac data recovery software

Macworld

It’s a nightmare scenario: your Mac has been playing up for weeks and you’ve been ignoring it, or just haven’t been able to figure out how to fix it. Then it refuses to start up. Why didn’t you make that backup? Is there any way you can get back the lost data from your Mac? Luckily there are apps that can recover your lost photos and damaged files from your failed Mac’s hard drive.

There are a few techniques you can try before you spend money on an app though, as you’ll see in our How to recover data from a damaged Mac article. Also, prevention is better than a cure and we recommend adopting a regular backup routine going forward, so you’ll avoid this kind of situation again. For more tips on this, take a look at The best backup software for Mac and How to use Time Machine to back up a Mac.

If these tips prove to be of no avail, there are apps that can rescue your files from a deleted, corrupted or crashed drive. Data recovery apps, like the ones we have reviewed below, work in a similar way: if the directory indicating where files were originally stored is salvageable, recovering the files is relatively easy. If that isn’t the case, the software will scan the data for familiar patterns that would denote a file type. Once it finds a file type, there’s a good chance that there will be data in that file.

But expect it to be a time-consuming process to piece the bits of files back together. With patience, most files that haven’t been overwritten should, in theory, be saveable. Some drives can take days to fully scan, and the higher capacity they are, the longer the process. But if it’s irreplaceable photos or important documents that are lost, you can afford to wait.

Unfortunately, this sort of software is pretty much always going to have a high price associated with it before you can recover what you need–but if you’ve lost hundreds of treasured photos or the first 1,000 pages of your novel, then no price is too high, probably. Sometimes you can pay for the software for a month, do what you need to do and then cancel. Sometimes you must subscribe for a year. Other options allow you to buy it outright, but pay extra for future updates. Your own circumstances will influence which option is best for you. Additionally, many of these tools offer a trial so you can at least see what you should be able to recover before you spend your money.

Whether you’re a casual user scrambling to recover your lost files, or a full-time tech shop doing everything it can to retrieve a client’s most critical documents from a dying hard drive, these are the data recovery apps that get our recommendation.

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Looking to recover data from a iPhone? Read: Best data recovery apps for iPhone.

Best data recovery software for Mac

Here’s our pick of the best data recovery apps for Mac.






Data Rescue, Prosoft Engineering





















Pros


Excellent toolset and recovery system

Helpful Scan Management system to manage and continue up to 15 scans



Cons


High subscription-based price

In July 2024 the software’s last update was in 2023

Inadequate tech support

No means of creating a macOS Sonoma recovery drive (as of July 2024)


















Data Rescue, currently version 6.0.8, offers some excellent drive management and data recovery features, albeit at a steep price for occasional users.

The software supports older versions of macOS and requires macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or later. Users can download the software and assign full drive access, with a trial offering up to 1GB of data recovery for free. The company charges $19 per individual for non-licensed data retrieval, $79 for a standard license, and $399/year for a professional license. The hefty fee covers only one Mac or PC. The auto-renew option needs to be turned off via the web-based Prosoft account.

The software has a compelling toolset, including Quick Scan or Deep Scan, view hex tables, secure erase, set drive parameters, manage virtual RAID setup, and work with numbered sectors on drives and allocation blocks. It allows users to work with up to 15 scans, pausing and resuming as needed – handy if you’re several hours into a Deep Scan. The software runs well in the background.

Data Rescue 6 can create clone and recovery drives, handling different data strategies such as Straight, Reverse, Bisect, and Segment. However, it does not offer an option to create a macOS Sonoma recovery drive as of July 2024.

There are other limitations. If the drive is mechanically failing, it’ll be harder for data to be pulled and reconstructed. 

Technical tools in Data Rescue 6 offer plenty to work with, but can get you in trouble if you aren’t familiar with them. For example, setting the wrong drive parameters or boot point can require troubleshooting.

Overall, Data Rescue 6 offers excellent tools, but Prosoft should address issues like lack of customer responsiveness, the lengthy time between updates, the high, subscription-based price tag, and a lack of a tutorial system. 

Read our full

Data Rescue review






Stellar Data Recovery for Mac





















Pros


Quick, clean interface

Good data recovery tools and modules

Impressive net-based data recovery module



Cons


Repeated crashes for the Clean Up Junk Files module

Strange macOS Recent Items and serial number activation bugs

Keeps an upgrade to a higher-level account, even after a full account has been purchased


















Stellar Data Recovery for Mac focuses on recovering data via standard scans, deep scans, drive image creation, and other recovery tools. It is available as a free trial, with standard, professional, and premium editions available on yearly or lifetime contracts. The software supports both HFS+ and APFS volume formats and can be installed easily.

Stellar Data Recovery’s main strength is its extensive data recovery engine, which supports hundreds of file formats and allows users to search and recover by file type, headers, and attributes. It also features a good scan management engine that allows users to save and work from previous scans, and an image creation feature that allows users to create a byte-for-byte image of a volume that can be restored later.

One interesting feature is the Recover Non Booting Mac module, which allows users to log into their Mac’s recovery partition, load Terminal, and enter a command to open a remote version of Stellar Data Recovery (more details in our full review). Other modules such as Search Large Files and Search Duplicate Files perform well and provide a comprehensive look at your drive.

The complete array of modules worked well with test drives, recovering data as needed, and snagging as much as possible.

Unfortunately, we did experience some problems. Stellar’s Clean Up Junk Files crashed the application repeatedly and had to be force quit under macOS Sonoma 14.6.1. 

Other issues included activating the serial number, which took several days and multiple calls and emails to sort out. Additionally, Stellar Data Recovery refused to appear in the macOS Recent Items menu, preventing it from being quickly launched. Even after activating a Professional tier account, the software still presents an “Upgrade” button on its main menu, which seems to be asking for more money to be thrown in the company’s general direction.

Despite these failings, Stellar Data Recovery for Mac is a good program able to dig deep to help reconstruct and recover deleted data. There’s also Stellar Data Recovery for iPhone.

Read our full

Stellar Data Recovery for Mac review






Disk Drill Pro, CleverFiles





















Pros


Friendly interface, access to helpful YouTube instructional videos

Good data recovery performance

Data Shredder utility



Cons


Occasional crashes

macOS Installer utility failed to create a viable boot drive after multiple attempts

Data recovers to multiple folders and can be confusing to locate


















Disk Drill Pro from Cleverfiles is designed to recover data and rebuild deleted files on Macs and various other platforms and devices. It works with standard macOS file formats like HFS+, Mac OS Extended, and APFS. 

The basic version is available for free and can recover up to 500 megabytes of data. There’s a Pro version that supports one user and up to three simultaneous activations, paid for once with an additional expense for lifetime upgrades. The Enterprise edition has a similar extra expense for lifetime upgrades and supports 10 users and infinite activations with priority technical support and DFXML forensic data support. At the time of our review Cleverfiles was offering a 50% discount from past versions, 20% discount for education, non-profit, and government customers, and a 50% competitive upgrade.

Disk Drill Pro requires macOS 10.15 Catalina or later and offers several new features, including a RAID utility, NAS & Linux via SSH utility, tools for recovering data from iPhones, iPads, and Time Machine volumes, a scan session manager, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, a macOS boot drive creator, a backup utility, a Clean Up utility to map drive storage, a duplicate file remover, a data shredder, and a free space erasure tool. YouTube-based tutorial videos are available.

Devices can be scanned over a Wi-Fi network, and the S.M.A.R.T. function provides data about drive temperatures, drive condition, and life percentage left. Disk Drill Pro runs the scan in the background and can bypass file permission errors on the data being erased. During our data recovery scans, more than 90% of deleted files were readily recovered. 

Disk Drill Pro has some issues, such as the macOS Installer utility failing to produce a bootable volume after multiple tests, the Recent Sessions scan manager only sporadically working, and Disk Drill Pro crashing into the spinning rainbow wheel if a process is interrupted. However, it offers reliable data recovery from a wide variety of devices.

Read our full

Disk Drill Pro review






EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac





















Pros


Free version (up to 2GB)

Great data recovery tools and file organization and categorization

Video Repair tool



Cons


High price point compared to competitors

Unbootable Mac module failed to locate and work with drives for recovery testing

Unable to log into some cloud-based services for data recovery and file storage


















EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, at version 17.2.0 at the time of our review, is a Mac port of the Windows recovery software.

There is a free version with a 2GB recovered data cap as well as a paid version, which offers additional features such as 1-on-1 remote assistance, is available as a free trial, and requires Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) or later to run. The paid version offers one license for one Mac paid monthly, yearly or as a lifetime upgrade plan that covers one Mac. The monthly and annual license payments auto-renew.

The software supports over 1,000 file types and offers specific modules for SD cards, cloud-based recovery, and storage. It supports APFS, HFS+, HFS, XFAT, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS, making it useful for working with drives from Windows and Linux machines.

The core functionalities of data recovery, reconstruction, and organization are its strongest points. A friendly interface guides users in choosing the volume to recover from and designating the target restoration drive or folder. The program organizes recovered and restored data logically into categories such as All Types, Pictures, Documents, Audio, Videos, Emails, Archives, and Others.

The SD Card function is useful, and the iCloud module makes it easy to log into iCloud (requiring Two Factor Authentication). The Video Repair module is enjoyable for exporting cleaner copies of old videos. However, some issues need attention, including the Unbootable Mac module, which has the user shut down their Mac, boot into Recovery Mode, then boot off an external server run by EaseUS. While this is a good idea in theory, the tool went into a continuous loop of being unable to mount my M2 Mac internal and external drives. I allowed this process to run overnight, and when I woke up in the morning, the drives had still not mounted and the tool could not be worked with. 

The cloud tool was unable to successfully log into Dropbox for recovery, and the application required an administrator password every time the user launched it. Additionally, the software presented a customer feedback survey every time the user exited the program, which was infuriating.

In conclusion, Data Recovery Wizard for Mac excels at its core functions and presents an attractive means of recovering data from Mac, Windows, and Linux volumes with a nice array of platform and file format support. However, the high price point, Unbootable Mac module failures, constant need for an administrator password, and repeating customer feedback survey window let it down.

Read our full

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac review






Recoverit, Wondershare





















Pros


Free trial (only 100MB)



Cons


Free trial is only 100MB


















Recoverit by Wondershare is another stalwart in data recovery. Like pretty much all the others in this roundup, there is a free trial version that allows you to test what files it will be able to recover, then you can step up to the paid versions to recover the data as the free trial is limited to 100MB. 

The process for this is pretty simple. Scan your system with the software to see what’s available to recover in the form of small thumbnails – if you see a preview of a file you can be certain you will be able able to recover it. Hence the name!

It works with over 1,000 file types and systems, including NTFS, FAT, HFS+, APFS, which should pretty much cover everything from almost any kind of drive or storage media. 

There are three packages available, each with different features: Essential includes all that we’ve mentioned above for a 1-year license on a single Mac. Standard gives you the ability to create bootable drives so you can access drives on your Mac that have crashed or fail to load up. Professional works on two Macs and adds the Advanced Video Recovery feature that can help fix corrupted or fragmented video files, making them playable and in many cases as good as new. Obviously, if you’ve lost those first baby steps that you captured on your phone years ago, then this could be very precious indeed. 

Recoverit is compatible with macOS Monterey and below, and works with the M1 and T2 Security Chip. 

Wondershare claims that Recoverit has a 95% recovery rate for files, which is pretty damn high. So, if your Mac or external storage devices have recently stopped working, it could be well worth downloading this app. 







Alsoft DiskWarrior





















Pros


Good user interface, speed, and performance

Great at locating and sorting out file and directory errors on supported formats and volumes

Nice customization and configuration options



Cons


Lack of APFS support puts the future of DiskWarrior in doubt

High price

Time Machine volumes can’t be repaired without booting off the included USB flash drive

















Best Prices Today:



$119.95 at Alsoft





Alsoft has been producing high-quality utility software for over 20 years. DiskWarrior, a popular application for recovering damaged hard drives, has been in use since 1998. However, the latest version of DiskWarrior 5.3.1, released in 2024, seems to be falling behind in software and file system support. 

The software still supports the HFS+ format, FireVault 1 and 2, Core Storage for Fusion dries, RAID configurations, and disk images and sparse bundles, but it has not been upgraded to support the APFS format, which is increasingly prevalent on new Macs and Apple’s push towards this file system standard.

DiskWarrior is available as a bootable USB flash drive that can boot Macs running HFS+ format volumes. Its ease of use remains unchanged, making it easy to mount and unmount drives and volumes, perform quick tests, access technical specifications, set up automated diagnostics, and receive notifications through alerts, emails, AppleScript programs, or text messages.

However, there’s bad news: DiskWarrior 5.3.1 still lacks support for the APFS standard. As more drives are moving towards this file system, the company’s silence on this matter is concerning. A representative within the company confirmed that Alsoft is working on version 6.0, which will offer full APFS support. However, changes from Apple’s side, such as not allowing third-party kernel extensions and other technical changes, have made the development process more difficult and created more roadblocks than previous versions of DiskWarrior.

The lack of a free trial version of DiskWarrior 5.3.1 raises concerns about the steep new user price and upgrade price, especially when the software lacks APFS support and can only work with certain volumes.

Sometimes a great utility gets stuck in development. There’s still a great application to be had here, but Alsoft needs to put itself in a position where it can readily announce that an updated version will be out at a given date and that it will offer APFS support.

Read our full

Alsoft DiskWarrior review






For more advice about accessories and software for your Mac, iPad or iPhone see all our Best Picks.