Almost everything is digital today. Most people choose to store all of their important files, pictures and other data digitally due to sheer convenience. While digital storage has made it convenient to store huge amounts of data, it also has its own challenges.
Accidentally deleting files is as easy as storing them on your hard drive or SD card or USB drive. This is the reason, you should always have a backup of your digital data.
Backups for your digital files are extremely important and fortunately, there are a number of free and paid data backup solutions such as Dropbox, Google Drive and other cloud solutions, and external hard drives or USB sticks are also affordable.
However, things do go wrong sometimes due to human error or system crash or for various other reasons.
Thankfully, there are quite a few free file recovery software available today that can help you recover the deleted files.
Here is a list of the top 20 free data recovery software that will allow you to restore your deleted data in just a few clicks. The list below is in no particular order.
1. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
This is an excellent file recovery program and you just need to make a few clicks to recover the deleted files.
The best part about this software is its intuitive user interface similar to Windows Explorer. It allows you to recover files that have been deleted accidentally or for other reasons.
Partition recovery is also possible with the software. You can also recover data from a formatted partition, memory card, USB drive as well as hard drive and other storage devices.
You can also use it to retrieve files from digital camera, SD card, USB drive as well as external hard drive. Emergency data recovery can be made when data is lost due to system crashes, boot failure or virus attacks.
The free version allows you to recover up to 2 GB data. It is available for both Mac OS 10.15 to 10.9 and for Windows. You can use it with Windows XP to Windows 7. It’s also supports Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012.
2. Recuva
Recuva is one of the more popular free file recovery tools. The best thing about this piece of software is that it works on almost any rewritable media which means it allows you to recover files from digital camera memory card or external hard drive or files on a USB key apart from all other types of files on your Windows computer.
It also supports RAW formats. If you still have an iPod and want to recover files, this piece of software can also do that.
It’s also great for recovering data from formatted or damaged discs and you can use it to recover deleted emails from Mozilla Thunderbird, Windows Live mail or Microsoft Outlook Express.
It has an intuitive interface which allows you to find most deleted files within a few minutes but there is also a deep scan feature that searches deeply buried files.
You can also use it to securely delete files on your computer forever. It’s also available in portable version.
Currently, it only supports Windows from Windows XP to Windows 7 and Windows 2003 server. It also has a 64 bit version which will install automatically on your 64 bit Windows.
3. PhotoRec
This is an open source data recovery software that is specifically designed to recover deleted files including pictures, videos, and documents among others.
One thing that sets it apart is that it completely ignores the file system and starts recovering files by scanning the underlying data.
Simply put, it means that this software will work even if the file system of your storage media has been reformatted or severely damaged.
It supports a wide variety of operating systems including every UNIX system, Mac OS X, Sun Solaris, Windows XP to Win 10 and Windows Server 2003 to 2016. It also supports DOS.
4. Disk Drill
Disk Drill is another free file undelete program with a very intuitive design. What sets it apart is its ease of use.
With this program, you can easily recover deleted data from memory cards, USB devices, internal hard drives, external hard drives as well as iPads.
When you run this program, it first scans the partition and lists all the files available for recovery. You can save the scan results to recover the deleted files later.
However, you can recover only up to 500 MB data with the free program. It is available for Windows XP and newer, and also for Mac OS 10.8.5 and newer versions.
5. Stellar Data Recovery
This software is simple to use and allows you to recover deleted data in just 3 simple steps. With the free version of the program, you can recover up to 1 GB of data.
It allows you to recover deleted data on almost any Windows-based storage media including USB sticks, SD Cards, hard drives, eMMC and others.
One unique feature of this software is that it gives you a preview of the deleted files it can recover during the scan.
You also get to save a copy of the files it can recover for restoration at a later time. It offers support in 5 languages.
It lists the files available for recovery in different categories such as documents, multimedia files such as audio, videos or photos which means you can quickly undelete a particular type of file if that is all you want from the free version. It is available only for Windows XP and above.
6. TestDisk
This is another open source data recovery software with focus on recovering lost partitions which happen due to faulty software, particular viruses or human error.
This software is easy to use for both novices and experts. With this software, you can easily recover deleted partitions and also fix the partition table.
It runs on Windows XP and newer, and Windows Server 2003 and newer. You can also use it on Mac OS X as well as on DOS and Linux.
7. Ultimate Boot CD
This tool is a collection of a number of other free tools and also includes tools for recovering deleted data such as TestDisk and PhotoRec among others.
With this software option, you will get a text based menu which allows you to choose the tool you want to run.
It is a collection of more than 30 Freeware or GPL diagnostic tools. You can also run it from a USB stick and the latest version also contains the Linux distro Parted Magic. It should run on any machine.
You will need to have some experience with computers to use Ultimate Boot CD but it contains some powerful and flexible collection of tools for many purposes (recovery, diagnostics etc).
8. Active Undelete
This data recovery software presents the scan results in a Windows Explorer style navigation. You can preview the scan results and choose only the deleted files that you want to recover.
You can also use it to scan for deleted partitions. It is also capable of virtually recreating a disassembled RAID array.
The paid versions of this software also support hard drives that are more than 4 TB in size and it also offers support for hard drives with 4096 byte sector size.
It currently supports only Windows OS from XP and newer and also Windows Server from 2003 and newer.
There is a DEMO version and also a Freeware option to test the capabilities of the tool.
9. Mini Tool Power Data Recovery Free
With this file undelete software, you can easily recover deleted files, files from inaccessible partition or files after a virus attack.
It also allows you to recover files from corrupted hard drive or data from a completely dead PC. You can also use this software to recover lost files from a USB drive or a reformatted partition.
The free version of the software restricts you to recover up to 1 GB of data but you can always upgrade to recover more data. Currently, it is available only for Windows 7 and newer as well as Windows Server OS.
10. PC Inspector File Recovery
It is a freeware tool that is capable of working with a wide variety of disk formats. The most unique feature of this tool is that it can identify and recover partitions even with a missing header which is usually not possible with other free alternatives.
It is also capable of recovering files shared within a network drive. It is compatible with Windows 95 up to Windows 8.1.
11. PC Inspector Smart Recovery
This data recovery program has been specifically designed for recovering formatted or deleted sound files, videos or pictures.
It can recover deleted files from secure digital cards, memory sticks, flash cards, smart media as well as IBM Micro Drive or any other data carrier for digital cameras.
It supports a wide variety of file formats and you will also find it bundled with the software for many digital cameras. It is compatible with Windows XP, ME, 2000, NT 4.0 and 9X.
12. Puran File Recovery
This free software utility can be used for recovering partitions as well as deleted data. You can also use it to recover data from formatted disks.
Anything that is recognized as a drive by Windows can be scanned with the software regardless of the file system. Its uniqueness lies in its simple interface.
It has a quick scan, deep scan and full scan option.
With a quick scan, you can quickly recover deleted files whereas deep scan goes through the drive byte by byte in order to recover files stored deep inside the hard drive.
The full scan option is capable of detecting lost partitions and it can even recover files from formatted drives.
You’re free to preview all the files before recovery. There is also a search box that supports wild cards and it also comes with a portable version.
It is compatible with Windows XP and newer, and also offers native support for 64-bit versions.
13. FreeUndelete
This free for personal use software tool is capable of restoring deleted files. It is extremely easy to use and does not require any special skills. You can also use a USB flash drive to use this utility. It is compatible with Windows XP, 2000, ME as well as 2003 and 2008 Server.
Supported file systems include NTFS 1.0, NTFS 2.0, FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32.
14. Undelete My Files Pro
It is a free tool that allows you to quickly find and recover deleted data. It has an easy-to-use interface that requires only a few clicks for you to find and recover any deleted files.
It also comes with specialized filters to find specific deleted files. You can also use it to delete files securely. It also has an inbuilt mail recovery wizard allowing you to quickly recover your emails in addition to disk files.
15. UnDelete 360
This free software tool is capable of recovering deleted files due to unexpected system shutdown, hardware failure, software failure, trojan infection as well as human errors.
You can use it to recover files from FireWire drives, USB drive, digital camera card, flash drive as well as internal and external hard drive.
The unique feature of this software is that it shows scan results in a folder view as well as in file type which means you are able to preview files before recovering them.
You can also perform a search to find certain files and do not need to scan the entire volume which means quick recovery.
It is also capable of recovering encrypted and compressed files on NTFS drives. It is able to recover almost all the popular file types. It currently supports Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and 2003 and 2008 Server.
16. Data Rescue 5
It is an easy-to-use data recovery tool that allows you to recover deleted files from SD cards, USB drives, external hard drives as well as start-up drive.
Once you start the software, it will prompt you to choose the device from which the data needs to be recovered. There are two scanning options which include a quick scan and deep scan.
Quick scan option should be used when the operating system fails to boot or the external hard drive fails to mount.
Deep scan function should be used when you have deleted files from the recycle bin or have reformatted a drive.
It is compatible with Windows 7 and newer and it also works for Mac OS. The free utility only allows you to scan the drive but you will need to pay in order to recover the files.
17. Glary Undelete
Another file recovery program with an intuitive user interface. It is capable of recovering files from USB drives, memory cards as well as hard drives or other removable media.
It presents the scan results in a Windows Explorer style interface and also indicates the probability of a successful file recovery.
You will need to install it on the system to use it as there is no portable version. It is compatible with Windows XP and newer versions.
18. Active File Recovery
This data recovery tool presents results in a Windows Explorer style navigation window and it is capable of recovering files from reformatted, damaged as well as deleted partitions and volumes.
It supports a wide variety of file systems and is capable of even damaged RAID data recovery. There is an inbuilt file organizer that detects files by signatures and reorganizes file in order to preview the reorganized data before the recovery process.
It also supports user-defined file signatures that can be loaded from a simple text file. It can also be used to recover damaged partitions from a machine that doesn’t boot. It is compatible with Windows XP and newer as well as Windows Servers 2003 and newer.
19. SoftPerfect File Recovery
You can use this free file recovery tool to recover accidentally deleted data from SD cards, CF cards, USB drives as well as floppy disks and hard drives.
It supports all the popular file systems. It is a small sized utility with file size of less than 600 kB and the scan results are presented with individual files.
It allows you to recover only the files you want to recover without the need to recover a whole partition or volume. It is compatible with Windows XP and newer versions.
20. Orion File Recovery
It is an easy-to-use file recovery program that allows you to easily recover accidentally deleted data. The scan results are presented in an easy to use window and you can recovery specific files you want. You can also use this software to securely erase files from your system. It is compatible with Windows 8 and newer versions.
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