Recover Deleted Files on Mac: Top 7 Free Solutions to Restore Your Lost Data

Many computer users who use macOS machines are familiar with accidental data loss. Whether you are using an older Macintosh or the newest MacBook Pro, there is always the potential that some important information may be deleted. This can be a stressful situation that needs to be quickly resolved. We are going to show you a number of ways to rescue your lost data from your Mac computer.

After a file is deleted from your Mac computer, macOS simply marks the space that the files formerly occupied as available for reuse. The files are still physically on the disk, though no longer logically accessible through the operating system. As long as the files are not overwritten, there is a good chance that you can recover deleted files on Mac.

7 Proven Ways to Recover Deleted Files on Mac

As a Mac user, you can choose between multiple tried-and-tested data recovery methods depending on your technical abilities, requirements, and other factors. We recommend you go through them in the order they’re listed below, but you can, of course, skip back and forth as you see fit.

Honorable Mention: Select the Undo Option

Difficulty: Easy
Chance of success: Low
Requirements: Your files were deleted very recently

The macOS operating system lets you erase the last performed action with a single click on the Undo button (or by pressing the Command – Z keyboard shortcut).

The Undo option can be useful when you make a mistake and accidentally delete important files that you certainly don’t want to lose. As long as you notice your mistake soon enough (before closing the app that was used to perform the deletion or restarting your Mac), you can make your files reappear with minimal effort.

To undelete deleted files using the Undo option:

1. Make sure the application that was used to delete the files (such as Finder) is selected.
2. Open the Edit menu in the menu bar.
3. Click the “Undo Move of [filename]” option.

It really doesn’t get any simpler than this. The only problem is that most users notice the loss of important files only when it’s already too late for the Undo option to be effective. Fortunately, other methods described in this article are not nearly as time sensitive, although you should still hurry up because deleted data can be recovered only until they become overwritten.

1. Make Sure the File Was Actually Deleted

Difficulty: Easy
Chance of success: Moderate
Requirements: The deleted files are present in Trash

While your first instinct may be to panic after discovering that you have lost an important file, a systematic search for your file will often produce successful results. Perhaps you were working on a file and accidentally deleted it. You look in the Finder app, and it is not in the folder where it should be located. Here’s how to find it.

The first place to look is in the Trash Bin. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Open the Trash Bin by clicking on its icon.
2. Search for the file you suspect was deleted.
3. If the file is found, right-click on the file and select the “Put Back” option.
4. Verify the recovery by using Finder and searching the file’s original location.

Other ways to search your computer may turn up a missing file. You may have inadvertently moved it to a different location, perhaps even to the cloud. A Spotlight search or employing the Siri digital assistant will quickly help you determine if the file is simply misplaced or really deleted. If it has been deleted, then keep reading, and we will look at some ways to get it back.

2. Restore Deleted Mac Files from a Time Machine Backup

Difficulty: Easy
Chance of success: High
Requirements: Time Machine is active

Time Machine is Apple’s backup and recovery tool, and it comes installed on your Mac. You should use it as part of your regular computer maintenance schedule to create backups of your valuable data. Having a backup can come in handy if you discover you have deleted some files and emptied the Trash bin (what the Recycle Bin is called on Mac computers) because Time Machine can recover even permanently deleted files.

To restore files on Mac using a Time Machine backup, follow these steps:

1. Connect the device that contains the Time Machine backup.
2. Launch Time Machine.
3. Open a Finder window in the location you last remember seeing the file.
4. Scroll back through Time Machine until the file appears in the Finder window.
5. Select the file and click Restore to recover it.

3. Recover Data without Time Machine Using Data Recovery Software

Difficulty: Moderate
Chance of success: High
Requirements: The deleted files have not been overwritten

If you need to recover lost data from a computer or storage device for which you have no backup, you will need to employ dedicated Mac data recovery software.

Disk Drill is an excellent data recovery application that can answer the question of how to recover deleted files on your Mac with a simple click. It offers support for all commonly used file formats and file systems, which allows it to solve virtually any data loss situation you may encounter.

• File Formats: Videos, Audio, Images, Documents, Archives and More
• File Systems: NTFS, FAT, FAT32, exFAT, EXT3/EXT4, HFS+, APFS
• Supported OS: Mac OS X 10.8.5+

4. Recover Deleted Files from a Backup

Difficulty: Easy
Chance of success: High
Requirements: Previous backup

There are other methods besides Time Machine to back up your Mac. You can simply copy files and folders to an external drive or cloud storage. Many third-party backup products are also available to protect your data assets. All of these methods require that you save the backups to some type of external storage. The process of recovering files or folders from a backup is similar no matter which type of system you use.

The following steps can be used to recover your data from backup media:

1. Connect the backup media to your computer.
2. Launch the data protection tool that was used to create the backup.
3. Search for the desired files and folders using the restoration tool’s interface.
4. Select the items to be restored and use the interface to begin the process.

5. Recover Deleted Files Using Mac Terminal

Difficulty: High
Chance of success: Moderate
Requirements: The deleted files are present in Trash

The Mac Terminal program provides an alternate method of recovering files from your Mac’s Trash. It is a command line way to recover recently deleted files from your computer.

To use the Terminal app, use these steps:

1. Launch the Terminal application.
2. Enter the cd .Trash command.
3. Type this command: mv xxx.xxx where xxx.xxx is the full filename and extension. Hit Return.
4. Type Quit to exit the Terminal app.
5. Open a Finder window and you should find the recovered file in its original location.

6. Explore App-Specific File Recovery Options

Difficulty: Easy
Chance of success: Moderate
Requirements: The app that was used to create the lost files has a built-in recovery feature

Many apps these days have various built-in recovery features to protect their users against data loss. Notable examples include Adobe Photoshop with its Autosave feature and Microsoft Office applications with their cloud saving capabilities.

Since each app that has a built-in recovery feature works slightly differently, it would be beyond the scope of this article to provide you with detailed instructions for all major apps. However, the process is usually quite similar, and it looks something like this:

1. Open the app that was used to create the file you want to recover.
2. Look for the app’s recovery feature.
3. Choose the files you want to recover and move them to a safe location.

Apps that back up files to the cloud are especially convenient because they let you perform deleted file recovery from any device that’s connected to the internet. So, even if your Mac gets lost, stolen, or critically damaged, you should still be able to get your files back.

7. Pay a Data Recovery Service to Recover Your Files for You

So far, we’ve described five ways to recover deleted photos, videos, audio, documents, and other files on Mac, covering everything from the Trash folder to third-party data recovery software. But there’s one more solution that we should mention: professional data recovery services.

Professional data recovery services have the equipment and know-how to perform complicated repairs of physically damaged storage devices that are no longer recognized or simply don’t work. Thanks to their immense experience, they achieve a very high recovery success rate, making them ideal for recovering sensitive data of great value.

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As you can probably guess, the biggest downside of professional data recovery services is their price. Indeed, the cost of professional data recovery can be high when compared with the cost of professional-grade data recovery desktop applications, but there are situations when it’s much better to pay extra than lose important data.

What Is Mac’s Recovery Mode and Can It Help Recover Lost Files?

macOS Recovery, commonly referred to as Mac Recovery Mode, is a relatively old feature that’s been available to Mac users since Mac OS X Lion (version 10.7). It’s essentially a useful collection of troubleshooting tools that you can use to fix startup issues, repair your operating system, and, yes, even recover lost files.

To start a Mac in Recovery Mode, do the following:

1. Click the Apple logo at the top left.
2. Select Restart.
3. Hold down the Command and R keys until you see an Apple logo or spinning globe.
4. After you Mac finishes booting into Recovery Mode, you will see a window titled macOS Utilities with several options:
   • Restore From Time Machine Backup: You have a backup of your system that you want to restore.
   • Reinstall macOS: Reinstall a new copy of macOS.
   • Get Help Online: Browse the Apple Support website to find help for your Mac.
   • Disk Utility: Repair or erase a disk using Disk Utility.
   
5. If your goal is to recover lost files and you have a Time Machine backup, select the first option and follow the on-screen instructions.

Which Mac Files Can Be Recovered and Under What Circumstances?

Generally, the above-described recovery methods can be used to recover any file, regardless of its type, extension, or size. Here’s a short list of file extensions commonly recovered by Mac users:

• 🗄️ Archives: 7Z, ARJ, CAB, DMG, ISO, JAR, MBX, PST, RAR, RDB, TAR.XZ, ZIP
• 🎧 Audio: AA, AAC, CDA, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP2, MPA, OGA, OGG, RA, WAV, WMA
• 🧾 Documents: DOC, DOCX, ENL, EPUB, FB2, HTML, ICS, NUMBERS, ODT, ODS, ODP, PAGES, PPT, PPTX, QBB, RTF, TTF, XLS, XLSX, XML
• 🤳 Images: AI, BMP, C4D, CR2, DJVU, ICO, JP2, JPG, NEF, PNG, PSD, SVG, TIFF, WMF
• 🎬 Video: 3G2, AVI, CRM, FLV, M4V, MKV, MOV, MP4, MPG, OGM, RM, WEBM, WMV

These and many other file extensions (Disk Drill, for example, supports over 400 file extensions) can be recovered if at least one of the following two conditions is met:

• Backup is available: If you have a backup that contains the files you need to recover, then you’re golden because you can simply transfer the files from the backup to a safe location and continue from where you left off.
• Overwriting has yet to occur: When you delete a file on your Mac, it doesn’t disappear from your Mac’s storage device immediately. In most situations, it first makes its way into the Trash folder, where it sits for about 30 days. Once it becomes permanently deleted, it still remains on your storage device until it becomes overwritten by new data. As long as overwriting hasn’t happened yet, you should be able to recover your files without any issues.

To make it more likely that at least one of the above-described conditions will be met, you should start recovering your files as soon as possible and avoid any unnecessary data transfer operations until your files have been successfully recovered.

Guarding Against Data Loss

Frequently Asked Questions

So, How to Restore Deleted Files on a Mac?

Download and install data recovery software of your choice to your Mac device. Launch the app and scan your Mac’s internal drive, SD card, or any USB device. Preview the scanning results and check for your files. Recover deleted files to a safe location.