Data Recovery Software Mac 2018 Review

Free Any Data Recovery is 100% Completely Free Data Recovery Software which can retrieve your deleted or lost files from Hard Drive of PC/Laptop and recover data from RAW/Lost Drive/Partition of.
Aug 21, 2018 Data Recovery Software Explained. Data recovery software programs can be miraculously useful in some conditions and may be completely vain in others. We review file-recovery applications to make cool documents from popular spinning hard drives, flash drives, SD player cards and various types of portable storage, which includes your smartphone.
Jun 26, 2020 The above 2020 Top 10 iPhone Data Recovery Software list highlights recovery abilities of each product such as device compatibility, ease of navigation, data types support and the recovery rate. However, you are also welcome to share your opinion and experience with any of the above iPhone data recovery software in the comments below.
Jul 07, 2020 Data recovery software is something that you hope you never have to use. Unfortunately, many computer users will need to avail themselves of the power of this type of program at some time. We are going to review the top 10 data recovery software applications for the Mac to help you get your data back.

Jan 15, 2018 Don't panic. Data recovery software is your best (and sometimes only) hope of getting lost files back. We test and pick the best utilities for both Macs and PCs. Best Data Recovery Software to Recover Lost or Deleted Data like Documents, Photos, Videos, Emails etc. On Mac & Windows. 100% Safe & Secure, Award Winning Software.

Summary

This page uncovers 5 best completely free data recovery software for macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, older versions and morden Mac OS X, etc. All those Mac data recovery software share one commonality, they are free and useful for casual Mac users. Pick up one and let it take care of your Mac data now.

This article covers the top five completely free data recovery software for Mac, which varies from features, functions, and performance. However, they all have one thing in common: they are free.

Compare the five tools carefully, and select the one that fits your needs best.

PAGE CONTENT:

Top 5 Completely Free Data Recovery Software for Mac: 1. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free ; 2. Disk Drill; 3. PhotoRec; 4. TestDisk; 5. Exif Untrasher
3-Step Tutorial of Free Mac Data Recovery
People Also Ask

Top 5 Completely Free Data Recovery Software for Mac

When you get data loss on your Mac due to accidental deletion, partition/hard drive formatting, system crash, macOS upgrade, file system or hard drive corruption, stay calm and pick up one of the recommended data recovery software in the below for help.

1. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free is one of the free top and handy Mac data recovery software that enables you to recover data from the emptied trash bin, Mac notebooks, desktops, hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, memory cards, digital cameras, etc. It works on internal APFS/HFS+/HFS X drives, and FAT/FAT32/exFAT/NTFS file systems used in USB flash drives and external hard drives connected to Mac.

Highlighted Features:

# 1. All-in-one data recovery software

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free is fully compatible with the latest macOS 10.15(Catalina), 10.14 (Mojave) and all the former versions. It enables all Mac users to perform a full recovery of lost valuable data in only 3 steps: Scan > Preview > Recover.

# 2. HFS+ Fusion Drive Recovery

The latest update of EaseUS Mac data recovery software has improved its support of Fusion Drive, which makes it work even better in retrieving files from Mac computers which are installed on fusion drives.

# 3. Encrypted Drive Recovery

Another great update in EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac is that it supports encrypted drive recovery by offering guidance to assist Mac users in decrypting and unlocking their drives with password.

# 4. Data Protection

Once the data protection feature is enabled, it will automatically back up the deleted files to a safe location. If you unexpectedly delete files and want to recover later, you can quickly restore the lost files from the created backup.

Pros:

Support to restore 200+ file types on Mac, including recovering lost Word/Excel/PPT documents, photos, videos, music files, emails, archived files, and more.
Quick Scan + Deep Scan technology greatly enhances recovery probability.
Real-time Preview allows you to preview found files while scanning and before proceeding with data recovery.
No quality-loss recovery brings your lost photos, videos perfectly back in its best performance.

Cons:

The completely free version is limited to a maximum of 2GB data recovery. (The outstanding Windows data recovery free version also provides 2GB free file recovery.)

2. Disk Drill

Disk Drill is a popular Mac data recovery application developed to recover lost partitions or files from Mac internal and external hard drives. Also, the Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery options in the free trial version support to monitor the file deletion activity and retain metadata so as to quickly undelete files.

Highlighted Features:

# 1. Undelete Protected Data (Not Available in Free Version)

Being similar to the Data Protection feature in EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, Disk Drill also contains an undelete protected data feature that requires Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery features to be enabled in advance.

With these two features enabled, Mac users could quickly undelete files from a Trash Bin reference or shadow copy of each file to a user-specified folder.

# 2. Allocate Existing Files

When Finder fails to read data, Disk Utility reports the drive as unformatted, Disk Drill can scan the partition and retrieve data from Mac.

Pros:

Compatible with all the Mac OS X and macOS systems.
Recover 200+ file types.
It is packed with free and useful disk tools for all users.
An intuitive user interface to recover lost files effortlessly.

Cons:

The free version only allows a preview of data recovery.
Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery are not available in the free version.

3. PhotoRec

PhotoRec is a free, open-source program that works very well in data recovery on older operating systems like OS X, Linux, Free BSD, Net BSD, Open BSD, and Windows.

It allows users to restore most common files, like photos, audios, documents, ZIP archives, and others from internal or external devices, such as digital cameras, memory cards, USB flash drives and partitions/hard disks.

Highlighted Features:

# 1. Advanced File Carving

PhotoRec first searches for the data block or cluster size. The program will quickly load value from superblock like ext2/ext3/ext4 or volume boot record like FAT/NTFS if the file system is not corrupted. When file system corrupted, PhotoRec will check the device by a sector level, using the first 10 found files to calculate the block or cluster size so as to locate and find more lost files.

# 2. Block or Cluster Level Recovery

This program will read the Mac device block by block, cluster by cluster, checking against different file signatures so to recuperate available files.

Pros:

Support data recovery cross-platforms, Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, etc.
100% open-source program, not only the software but also the source code.
Nice tool to recover personal files.

Cons:

Not very user-friendly for ordinary computer users.
Technical skills required. It uses command lines to operate.

4. TestDisk

TestDisk, like PhotoRec, it's also an open-source, freeware product that allows for multiple file types recovery.

It mainly focuses on partition recovery. It enables users to find deleted or lost partitions by fixing the partition tables due to software crash, virus attack, mistaken formatting, etc.

Highlighted Features:

# 1. Partition Recovery

When a partition lost or disappeared on Mac due to corrupted partition tables, Mac users can apply TestDisk to rebuild and repair the corrupted partition table.

# 2. Rebuild Boot Sectors

When the Mac bootable drive fails to boot, it corrects problems in bootable drives that are failing to boot.

Pros:

Completely free and open.
Runs on several operating systems, including macOS and Mac OS X versions.
Recover lost partitions and rebuild the partition table.

Cons:

Use the command line to make data recovery.
Not user-friendly for regular computer users.

5. Exif Untrasher

Exif Untrasher is another completely free Mac data recovery tool that mainly restores deleted or JPEG files from digital cameras, external drive, USB stick, SD card, etc. You can easily download and install this software on your Mac running Mac OS X 10.10 and all the later versions.

Highlighted Features:

# 1. Highly Efficient in JEPG Recovery

Exif Untrasher is a tool that mainly designed to locate photos in JEPG formats on any kind of storage device like SD card, CF card, memory stick or Mac hard disk.

External storage device needs to be mounted as a volume on Mac for the utility to access and attempt a restore.

Pros:

Simple and quick to recover lost images from the memory card.
Free with no quantity limits.
It is updated by the developer regularly.

Cons:

It only works for JEGP file recovery. It doesn't support extra file formats.

3-Step Tutorial of Free Mac Data Recovery

To help more Mac users to bring their lost files are soon as possible, we are here to show you a 3-step tutorial of free Mac data recovery. If you are eager to bring your lost files back on Mac or external storage devices, apply the brief and innovative EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free for help.

Remember to connect your USB, SD card, or external hard drive to Mac computer if your lost data were saved on it.

Step 1. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you lost data and files. Click the Scan button.

Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results on the left pane.

Step 3. In the scan results, select the file(s) and click Recover Now button to have them back.

Conclusion

On this page, you are presented with the top 5 completely free Mac data recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free, Disk Drill, PhotoRec, TestDisk, Exif Untrasher. When you are facing unexpected data loss on Mac, the programs demonstrated above can help you recover lost files effectively.

What's more, if your lost data is less than 2GB, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free is highly recommended as it provides the most user-friendly interface and most powerful data recovery function.

If you simply want to restore JEGP images, Exif Untrasher is worth to try.

Why Trust Us?

My name is Adrian Try and I’ve worked in IT for quite a while, and exclusively with Macs for the last ten years. With the jobs I’ve had, you’d imagine I have plenty of experience recovering lost data.

From 1989-1995 I spent five years teaching software classes, managing training rooms, and supporting office staff.
From 2004-2005 I spent two years doing similar work on a smaller scale.
From 2007-2010 I spent four years running my own computer support business, solving the IT problems of businesses and individuals.
And for two years I was the IT manager of an organization, supporting up to 100 office staff and an internet cafe.

Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of computer problems! But throughout all of those years, I’ve only had to run data recovery software four or five times when crucial data was lost in a disaster caused by computer failure or human error. I was successful about half of the time.

That’s not a lot of experience, so I wanted access to the opinions of those with a significant amount of experience using these apps: those who specialize in data recovery. I hunted for test results of industry experts who ran the best Mac data recovery apps through their paces.

What You Need to Know Up-Front about Data Recovery

How does data recovery work?

If it’s gone, how can you get it back? The fact is, when you delete a file or format a drive, the data remains. It’s just that the computer’s file system no longer keeps track of it. As you continue using your computer, the data will eventually be overwritten.

Data recovery software can use this knowledge to help you get your files back, using strategies like these:

They quickly scan for remnants of information in your folder structure and may be able to recover files that have been recently deleted, including the filename and location.
They can also check the leftover data on your drive sector-by-sector, and using pattern-recognition strategies, may be able to identify whether it’s from a Word file, a PDF, a JPG, or another common file type. But the app won’t know what the file was called, or where it was stored.

Data recovery is your last line of defense

Computers can lose information because of human error, hardware failure, apps crashing, viruses and other malware, evil hackers, natural disasters, or just bad luck. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it! So we plan for the worst.

If you’re wise, you’ll regularly back up your data to multiple locations (find out which data backup software is best for you), and run anti-malware software as well as other security-related apps. You may even use a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) to give yourself enough time to save your work when the power goes out.

So when disaster strikes, chances are you’re covered. Check your backups. Check the trash on your Mac. You’ve planned for this.

It’s those rare times when all of your preparation fails that you turn to Mac data recovery software. It’s your last line of defense. Hopefully, you won’t need it often, but it’s good to know it’s there.

Data recovery may cost you a lot of time and effort

Mac data recovery apps can run quick scans (which may take just minutes or even seconds) to recover data that was lost in a number of ways. These are handy, and worth trying, but can’t recover data from every situation. You may need to run a deep scan.

These can take many hours, or even days or weeks. Your entire drive needs to be examined carefully to locate as many recoverable files as possible. On a large drive, that may be thousands or even hundreds of thousands!

That means finding the right file can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Most apps include a search feature, but that only helps if the filename was recovered. You may need to go file by file and preview each one until you find the file you are looking for.

Data recovery is not guaranteed

Your file may be irretrievably corrupt, or that sector of your hard drive may be damaged and unreadable. However, Mac data recovery apps use a number of strategies to maximize your chance of success. And that begins before disaster strikes. Start running data recovery now, and it will take steps to protect your data, and warn you when drives are about to fail.

It’s possible to unintentionally write over your data while trying to recover it. So don’t save anything to that drive. When trying to recover data from your Mac’s main drive, that means booting from an external drive while attempting recovery. Many of the apps we cover give you this option.

If you fail to recover the data on your own, you can call an expert. That can be costly but is justified if your data is valuable. Just be aware that the steps you take on your own may actually make their job harder, so try to make this decision as early as possible.

Hard drives vs SSDs

Solid state drives are now very common in Macs. Yet in certain situations, data can’t be recovered from an SSD. PCMagazine explains:

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.

TRIM technology increases SSD efficiency and service life by clearing disk sectors on that aren’t being used, so it’s often turned on by default. But this makes it impossible to recover files from the Trash after it has been emptied. I tested this with every app we cover in this review and failed with each one.

So it’s time to make a decision: TRIM or no TRIM. If data recovering files from an emptied Mac Trash is more important to you than the speed and efficiency of your drive, you can turn TRIM off. How-To Geek gives a detailed tutorial here. Alternatively, become more careful and conservative about emptying the Trash—maybe check what’s in it first.

Recovering Lost Data under macOS 10.13 High Sierra and Later

As a security feature in recent versions of macOS, users are stopped from accessing the built-in system drive by any app. This is called “System Integrity Protection”. Unfortunately, it stops Mac data recovery apps from being able to do their job.

This can be disabled from System Preferences, and most data recovery apps will explain this when they are first opened. For example, when first running Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, I was shown the following message.

Steps to take before you attempt data recovery

Once you realize you have lost data, you need to act fast. The longer you wait, the more likely it is that your data will be overwritten and lost forever. If necessary, turn off the computer until you can attempt recovery.

The first thing you should do is create a disk image of your drive. This type of backup includes all of the lost data from the original drive and is a safeguard. Many recovery apps include the ability to create disk images. From there, begin to run scans on the drive (or the image), starting with a quick scan, then a deep scan if it’s not successful.

For more information, check out these Do’s and Do Not’s of Data Loss.

Who Should (& Should Not) Get This?

If you like to play it safe and perform regular backups (as you should), you may like to run data recovery software as well. Running it before you encounter data may well make it easier to get your data back. In addition, it will monitor the health of your hard drive, and prompt you to act before your drive dies.

But maybe you haven’t been playing it safe, and you just lost some important or sentimental files from your computer. Then these apps are for you. And in most cases, if you run a trial version of the software, you’ll find out whether your data can be recovered before you spend any money.

How We Tested and Picked

Mac data recovery apps are not all the same. They vary in their usability and features offered, and may employ different recovery strategies, so often differ in the number of recoverable files they can locate. As we compare the competition, we’ll try to help you make the best decision about which one will suit you best. Here’s what we looked at when evaluating:

How easy is it to use the software?

Data recovery is tricky, so some apps focus on ease of use. They minimize what you need to know and the number of choices you need to make to recover files. These suit most people. Other apps are a little more difficult to use but may deliver better results. They’re more suitable for data recovery specialists and power users.

Which recovery features are included?

Most scanning apps let you do quick and deep scans for lost files. Some apps offer a list of more specific scans that may save you time by not scanning for everything. Besides scanning for lost files, here are some key features we looked for:

Disk imaging: Create a backup of your files and recoverable data.
Pause and resume scans: Scans can be slow, so it’s handy to be able to save the state of a scan so you can continue from where you left off in the future.
Preview files: Gives you a quick way to identify any recovered files if the file name has been lost.
Bootable recovery disk: When trying to restore your Mac’s main drive, it’s best practice to boot from a recovery drive so you don’t overwrite your data.
SMART reporting: “Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology” gives early warning of drive failure.

Apple’s new APFS file system is relatively new. Even recently, not all recovery apps supported it. Thankfully, most Mac recovery apps now do.

How effective is the software?

Apps use various strategies to discover lost files on your drive. As a result, some apps may be more effective than others at finding files that can be recovered. How do you determine which are most effective? Lots of testing. In this review, I took three categories of tests into account:

Informal tests performed when we reviewed a number of data recovery software. They’re not absolutely thorough or consistent across each app, but demonstrate the success or failure of our scans.
A number of recent tests done by industry experts. Unfortunately, no single test covers all of our apps, and they often test the Windows version. They demonstrate that some apps are significantly more effective than others. I’ll include links to each test below.
To supplement the experts’ tests, I conducted a few of my own. I got a second opinion on the apps’ effectiveness while becoming more familiar with each app and its interface. In general, my test results agree with those of industry experts.

Here is the list of industry tests I refer to:

Data Recovery Digest‘s Best Pro Data Recovery Software Review tested the Windows versions of R-Studio and Data Rescue 5 among others.
ThinkMobile‘s Testing 7 Best Free Data Recovery Tools tested the free Windows versions of Disk Drill, EaseUS, MiniTool, and others.
DigiLab Inc‘s Data Recovery Software Review and Comparative Analysis Report reviews the Windows version of Prosoft Data Rescue PC3, R-Studio 7.7, Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Professional 6.0 and more. (Note: this is published on the website of R-Tools Technology, one of our winners.)
Computer Fixperts‘ Best Data Recovery Software for Windows & Mac summarized their experience using Stellar Data Recovery, EaseUS, and others.
Data Recovery Software Review‘s Data Recovery Software Comparison tested EaseUS, R-Studio, Stellar Phoenix, and others.

While all apps performed about equally with quick scans, deep scans split up the field. Some apps I’d shortlisted as winners—Prosoft Data Rescue and CleverFiles Disk Drill—found significantly fewer files to recover than our winners. More on that later.

For my own test, I copied a folder of 10 files (PDFs, Word Doc, MP3s) to a 4GB USB stick, then deleted it. Each app—except Prosoft Data Rescue—was successful.

I also noted the total number of recoverable files found by each app on the drive:

MiniTool: 6056 files, 4 minutes
Stellar: 3225 files, 8 minutes
EaseUS: 3055 files, 4 minutes
R-Studio: 2336 files, 4 minutes
Data Rescue: 1878 files, 5 minutes
Disk Drill: 1621 files, 4 minutes
Wondershare: 1541 files, 9 minutes
Remo: 322 files, 10 minutes

MindTool’s huge 6056 files include 3044 documents and media files (which is what the other apps are listing), and 2995 “other” files. This brings the result down close to the other top runners.

How fast are the scans?

I’d rather have a successful slow scan than an unsuccessful fast scan, but deep scans are time-consuming, so any time saved is a bonus. I didn’t look for a clear winner here, and slower scans don’t guarantee better results, but you’ll find some observations about scanning speeds below.

Value for Money

Here are the costs of each app we mention in this Mac data recovery software review, sorted from cheapest to most expensive:

MiniTool Mac Data Recovery V3.0 Personal: $79
Wondershare Recoverit Pro for Mac: $79.95
R-Studio for Mac 6.1: $79.99
CleverFiles Disk Drill Pro for Mac: $89
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac 11.8: $98.95
Stellar Data Recovery 9.0 for Mac Professional: $99 lifetime (or $79.99/year)
Prosoft Data Rescue 5 for Mac Standard: $99
Alsoft DiskWarrior for Mac: $119
Remo Recover Mac – Pro Edition: $179.97

The Winners

Easiest to Use: Stellar Data Recovery for Mac Professional

Stellar Data Recovery has an attractive interface that’s a breeze to use. In a deep scan, it is able to locate more recoverable files than many of its competitors. It passed all of our tests and did well in the industry tests that we consulted. Competitor OnTrack is so impressed, they license and rebrand it as “EasyRecovery”, and sell it at a higher price.

You can read our full review of Stellar Data Recovery 7.1 here. Version 9.0 has a simpler interface with a more modern design.

Mac Data Recovery Freeware

$79.99 fromthe developer’s website(one-year license), or $99.00 for a lifetime license

Features at a glance:

Disk imaging: Yes
Pause and resume scans: Yes, but is not always available
Preview files: Yes but not during scans
Bootable recovery disk: Yes
SMART monitoring: Yes

Stellar Data Recovery has a good balance between ease-of-use and successful data recovery, and we’re not the only ones who like it. Because of its easy-to-use interface, PCMagazine recommends it for beginners: “Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery offers an easy on-ramp to Mac data recovery.”

G2 Crowd rate customer satisfaction for the Windows version as a high 4.8 out of 5, but there are some negative reviews about the app on Amazon. One user complained about slow scans, another about the app freezing. Several users complained that the app couldn’t recover the files, and were offered a refund by Stellar. There were some extremely positive reviews as well, so the app sounds very promising, but is not perfect.

Ease of Use: This is one of the easiest-to-use recovery apps out there, and when I compare my experiences using version 9.0 with our review of version 7.1, they’ve taken it even further in the last two versions. Personally, I wonder if they’ve tried to make it too easy!

Let me demonstrate what I mean. This screenshot from version 7.1 offers a number of options, depending on the type of recovery you want to achieve.

Version 9.0 doesn’t. It gives you a choice of drives, with a big “Scan” button, and the option of making it a deep scan.

That’s much simpler, but it makes me feel I’m missing out on some choices. But that’s just me, and in reality, I’m probably not missing out on anything. For beginners, it’s a step forward: what to do next is very clear. Version 7.1’s options of “Deleted Recovery” and “Raw Recovery” may be unclear to some users, and lead to choice paralysis.

Once the scan is complete, I found the app’s search option made it easy to find the file I wanted out of the thousands found. That is, as long as the app was able to recover the original name of the file.

Features: This app includes most of the features you’ll need, including disk imaging, a bootable recovery disk, and file preview. But you won’t be able to preview files until the scan finishes, unlike some other apps.

In his test of version 7.1, JP found that the “Resume Recovery” feature may be buggy, so I thought I’d see if the feature had improved in version 9.0. Any time I attempted to pause a scan, I received the message, “Scan cannot be resumed from the current stage.” So I was unable to test the feature—it was unavailable every time I tried, and I tried a lot. The app did offer to save the scan results for future use at the end of each scan, however.

Effectiveness: Despite being easy to use, Stellar Data Recovery performs very well. In his testing of the app for our review, JP found the app powerful at recovering deleted files and identifying many types of recoverable files from his Mac.

How does it compare with R-Studio, a powerful competitor rated by many to be the most powerful? According to DigiLabs Inc, Stellar has better help and better phone and email support than R-Studio, and performed just as well in many (but not all) tests, though was sometimes much slower. These tests were done on the Windows versions, but are consistent with my test on the Mac versions.

It seems all recovery apps perform well with quick scans on a spinning hard drive, successfully recovering recently deleted files in just seconds. But when performing a quick scan on an SD card, only Stellar and R-Studio managed to recover all of the files, and also had the fastest scan times.

Deep scans split up the field further. When attempting to recover files whose directory information had been overwritten, each app succeeded with 8 out of the 10 files. However, Stellar and R-Studio’s scans were twice as quick, and unlike the other apps, JPG files were given the correct names from information found in the files’ metadata.

There were a number of tests where R-Studio’s results were significantly better. When recovering a large 7.5GB file, only Stellar and R-Tools placed the file in the right folder with the original name. However, Stellar’s file was only 40MB, so the entire file was not recovered. R-Tools recovered the entire file successfully.

And when recovering from a formatted Windows hard drive, R-Tools was the only app able to recover all files. The other apps did recover some files, with Stellar showing the worst results.

My conclusion? Stellar Data Recovery for Mac is one of the easiest apps to use and boasts better recovery results than most of the competition. By clicking a few simple buttons, you’ll have a solid chance of recovering your files. However, if maximum data recovery is your absolute priority, R-Studio may be the better choice for you, but at the cost of ease-of-use.

Most Powerful: R-Studio for Mac

R-Studio for Mac is a powerful data recovery tool developed for experienced data recovery professionals. It offers all the features an expert would expect, along with a proven track record of successful data recovery. Flexible parameter settings give absolute control over the recovery process. If you’re an experienced Mac user willing to open the manual when necessary, and prefer to use the best-in-class tool for the job, this may be the best app for you.

$79.99 from the developer’s website(one-time fee)

Features at a glance:

Disk imaging: Yes
Pause and resume scans: Yes
Preview files: Yes but not during scans
Bootable recovery disk: Yes
SMART monitoring: Yes

R-Studio’s is widely accepted as the most powerful data recovery app available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. The Data Recovery Digest put seven leading apps through a barrage of tests last year, and R-Studio came out on top. Their conclusion? “An excellent combination of file recovery features and performance. Shows the best results in almost every category. A must-have for any data recovery professional.”

Ease of Use: The Data Recovery Software Review rate’s R-Studio’s ease of use as “complex”. Given that it’s designed for experts, that’s no surprise. But I didn’t find the app as hard to use as you’d expect. I’d describe the interface as “quirky”—there are some unusual interface choices in there that take some getting used to. You’re offered plenty of options, and the developers have decided to put as much helpful information on the screen as possible, rather than hiding it in case it overwhelms beginners.

DigiLab Inc also concludes that beginners could find the app confusing:

The only significant disadvantage we found was R-Studio’s user interface. R-Studio is clearly designed for data recovery specialists and the interface can be confusing for inexperienced users. We think that the best solution would be to offer a “wizard”-style option for home users while keeping the current interface as an alternative.

Features: This is a feature-filled app, and includes advanced features not offered by the competition. It supports pretty much all file systems, can recover data from local disks, removable disks, heavily corrupted disks, unbeatable disks, and network clients. The developers list a good overview of the features here.

Effectiveness: In industry tests, R-Studio consistently produced the best results. And although it has a reputation for slow scans, it often completed scans faster than the competition.

Data Recovery Software Mac 2018 Reviews

For example, Data Recovery Digest’s The Best Pro Data Recovery Software – Review 2018 tested the Windows versions of R-Studio, Data Rescue 5 and five other apps. Here are the results of all of their tests:

R-Studio was the highest rated app for recovering deleted files. It received a score of 5.5, which it shared with the Windows app Do Your Data Recovery.
R-Studio was the highest rated app for recovering files from an emptied recycle bin ratings. It received a score of 5.5, which it shared with the Windows app Active File Recovery.
R-Studio was the highest rated app for recovering files after a disk reformat. It received a score of 5.3.
R-Studio was the highest rated app for recovering a damaged partition. It received a score of 5.8, which it shared with the Windows apps Active File Recovery and DMDE.
R-Studio was a highly rated app for recovering a deleted partition, with a score of 5.5. But DMDE was the winner here, with a score of 6.0.
R-Studio was the highest rated app for RAID recovery. It received a score of 5.9.

The results are consistent across tests run by independent industry experts. If you are looking for the app likely to recover the maximum amount of data, choose R-Tools.

The Competition

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac 11.8 ($98.95)

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is an easy-to-use app for Mac and Windows that also performs quite well in industry tests. It lacks disk imaging and a recovery disk, useful features that are offered by our winners. We have reviewed the Windows version of EaseUS here, but keep in mind that it has some differences to the Mac version.

Features at a glance:

Disk imaging: No
Pause and resume scans: Yes
Preview files: Yes but not during scans
Bootable recovery disk: No
SMART monitoring: Yes

In his SoftwareHow review, Victor Corda found that the scans tended to be slow, but successful. In the tests he ran, the app was able to recover the data each time, and he concluded that this is one of the best recovery apps he has run.

Others agree, including the Computer Fixperts, who made the app their second choice for data recovery. But there are quite a few negative reviews on Amazon, including users complaining it doesn’t work as expected. Not all of those should be regarded though, including a user who purchased the app to clone a drive, a feature it doesn’t claim to have.

Industry tests suggest that the app performs well. ThinkMobiles tested the free versions of seven data recovery apps, including EaseUS. It recovered all deleted files from a USB flash drive and achieved this in a medium amount of time compared with the other apps. A deep scan located more recoverable files than the others tested, though the test didn’t include our winners. In my own test, it was one of the best performers.

MiniTool Mac Data Recovery V3.0 Personal ($79)

MiniTool Mac Data Recovery is another easy-to-use app that produces good results. Customers report high satisfaction, and the app is available for Mac and Windows. I found the download process problematic: the website kept automatically downloading the Windows version even though I’m on a Mac.

Features at a glance:

Disk imaging: Yes
Pause and resume scans: No, but you can save completed scans
Preview files: Yes
Bootable recovery disk: Yes, but is a separate app
SMART monitoring: No

The app did not perform quite as well as EaseUS in the ThinkMobiles test. It recovered most of the deleted files (49 out of 50), and located 77% of the files that EaseUS found, but took longer than any other app to do so. But these results are significantly better than those achieved by Disk Drill (below).

Data Recovery For Mac

In my own test, MiniTool scanned the USB flash drive with one of the fastest speeds and outperformed much of the competition in the number of recoverable files it found.

CleverFiles Disk Drill Pro for Mac ($89)

Disk Drill is the data recovery app I enjoyed using most—its interface suits me. It has a good balance between features and ease of use, and it allows you to preview and recover files before the scan is complete.

But when I started to look at comparative tests, I discovered that it doesn’t perform as well as our winners. That surprised me—when I tested the app during my review, I successfully recovered every file that was lost. Read my full Disk Drill review here.

Features at a glance:

Disk imaging: Yes
Pause and resume scans: Yes
Preview files: Yes
Bootable recovery disk: Yes
SMART monitoring: Yes

I mentioned the ThinkMobiles data recovery test when covering the last two apps. They performed quite well. Disk Drill, however, did not.

While it did manage to recover all 50 deleted files, it discovered relatively few recoverable files when deep scanning a hard drive. Scan times were slow—almost as slow as MiniTool’s, the slowest app to be tested. By way of comparison, EaseUS and MiniTool were able to locate 38,638 and 29,805 recoverable files each. Disk Drill only found 6,676.

I wanted another opinion, so I ran my own test on a USB Flash drive. There EaseUS and MiniTool found 3,055 and 3,044 files each, while Disk Drill found just 1,621. All three apps took just four minutes to complete the scan.

As a result of these findings, I can’t recommend Disk Drill as a winner. While it includes all the features you need, and you’re likely to recover all your deleted files in a quick scan, more thorough scans are less promising.

Prosoft Data Rescue 5 for Mac Standard ($99)

Prosoft Data Rescue 5 is an easy-to-use data recovery app that performed well in the tests I performed during my previous Data Rescue review. However, like Disk Drill, when I started to consult industry tests, Data Rescue’s performance doesn’t stand up to many of its competitors. I reached the same conclusion when retesting all the apps for this review. While it is easy to use, includes clear feature descriptions, and all of the features you need, I can’t recommend this app if your goal is to recover the maximum data.

Features at a glance:

Disk imaging: Yes
Pause and resume scans: No, but you can save completed scans
Preview files: Yes
Bootable recovery disk: Yes
SMART monitoring: No

Data Rescue is a very popular app. It has good reviews on Amazon, and other “best of” comparisons rate it very highly, including PCMagazine. I had a high opinion of the app myself, and like all of the apps here, it may well recover the files you need.

However, testing done by Data Recovery Digest and DigiLab Inc demonstrates that, compared with our winners, the app doesn’t locate as many recoverable files after a deep scan. In fact, Data Recovery Digest concludes:

Although many internet resources are actively promoting this program, it shows quite poor performance. Moreover, it completely failed in many tests throwing error messages. The only reason to use the program is data recovery from Apple modern SSD disks with the APFS file system.

In their tests, the app had the lowest rating each time. They tested recovering deleted files, recovering files from an emptied recycle bin, recovering a formatted disk, recovering a damaged or deleted partition, and RAID recovery.

DigiLab’s tests were a little more promising. Data Rescue performed well in quite a few, but in others, it could not recover the data, and often its scans were slowest. In my own test, it is the only app that couldn’t recover the files I deleted from the USB flash drive, and it could only find 1878 files compared to EaseUS’s 3055 and Stellar’s 3225.

For an app that’s so widely recommended, these are sobering facts. While it may well recover the files you need, your chances will be increased by using one of our winners instead.

Wondershare Recoverit Pro for Mac ($79.95)

Wondershare Recoverit Pro is a little slow, and compares with Disk Drill and Data Rescue when locating recoverable files: reasonable, but not great. We previously reviewed the Windows version of Wondershare Data Recovery, which you can read here.

In that review, Victor Corda found the app is not ideal. Not all files could be previewed, making it harder to locate files. The Mac version of the app froze while he was using it, and he found the “remaining time” indicator wasn’t accurate.

In my test, the app was able to recover the files I deleted, but only located 1541 files, the second worst result, and second slowest scan. Only Remo Recover (below) did worse.

Remo Recover Mac – Pro Edition ($179.97)

Remo Recover Mac looks to be the least promising of the apps included in this Mac data recovery review. Scans are slow, locating files is difficult, and the app crashed while I was using it. We reviewed the Windows version of Remo Recover, which you can read here.

In my test, the app did recover all of the files I had deleted, but after a long 10-minute scan could only find 322 recoverable files on my USB flash drive. By comparison, Stellar Data Recovery found 3225. I cannot recommend this slow, expensive, unstable app.

Alsoft DiskWarrior for Mac ($119)

Alsoft DiskWarrior looks like a promising app. Unfortunately, it’s a little expensive and doesn’t offer a trial version, so I didn’t test it. It wasn’t included in any of the industry tests we could find, either.

Feedback on Amazon is very positive, and PCMagazine made it their Editors’ Choice for Mac, awarding it 4.5/5 stars, the same score as they gave Stellar Phoenix for Windows. It sounds like a promising app.

Data Recovery Software For Mac

Free Alternatives

Best Data Recovery Software Mac

There are some reasonable free data recovery software available for Mac and Windows, and we introduce them to you in another roundup. Here are some free apps for Mac, but we can’t recommend them if you’re looking for something easy to use.

Data Recovery Software Mac 2018 Review And Reviews

PhotoRec is a free and open source application by CGSecurity that can recover lost files, including video and documents from hard drives, and photos from digital camera memory. It’s a command-line app, so lacks in the usability area, but works well.

TestDisk for Mac is another free and open source application by CGSecurity. Rather than recovering lost files, this one can recover lost partitions, and make non-booting disks bootable again. It, too, is a command-line app.

Exif Untrasher allows you to recover deleted photos from your camera’s memory card.

Data Recovery Software Mac 2018 Review

Summary

Top 5 Completely Free Data Recovery Software for Mac

1. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free

2. Disk Drill

3. PhotoRec

4. TestDisk

5. Exif Untrasher

3-Step Tutorial of Free Mac Data Recovery

Conclusion

People Also Ask

1. Is Mac data recovery free?

2. What is the best free data recovery software?

3. Is there any free data recovery software?

4. How can I recover deleted files without software Mac free?

Why Trust Us?

What You Need to Know Up-Front about Data Recovery

Who Should (& Should Not) Get This?

How We Tested and Picked

How easy is it to use the software?

Which recovery features are included?

How effective is the software?

How fast are the scans?

Value for Money

The Winners

Easiest to Use: Stellar Data Recovery for Mac Professional

Mac Data Recovery Freeware

Most Powerful: R-Studio for Mac

Data Recovery Software Mac 2018 Reviews

The Competition

Data Recovery For Mac

Data Recovery Software For Mac

Free Alternatives

Best Data Recovery Software Mac

Data Recovery Software Mac 2018 Review And Reviews