Are free data recovery tools worth trying?

Software
1

I accidentally deleted some important files and have been looking at free data recovery tools, but I’m not sure how reliable they are. Do they actually recover files, or do most of them just scan for free and then ask you to pay? I don’t mind paying if necessary, but I’d like to know whether any free options are worth trying first.

2

I’d check Trash before installing anything. If you use Time Machine, have a look there too. If the file is still in Trash or in a backup, there’s really no reason to jump straight into recovery software.

3

PhotoRec is probably the first free one I’d try. It actually does the recovery, rather than just scanning and then putting everything behind a paywall. The UI is pretty basic, but it’s not hard to get going.

4

I used PhotoRec on an external drive once and it brought quite a bit back. Some files had generic names and the original folder structure was gone, so I had to sort through them myself. A bit of a pain, honestly, but the files were there. There’s no guarantee you’ll get everything back either. A lot depends on what happened to the drive after the files were deleted.

5

Disk Drill is another one I’d consider if you mainly want to see what’s still there. The free Mac version lets you scan and preview what it finds, but for normal recovery of those files you need the paid version. So it’s handy for checking whether the files are still showing up, just not a free way to get them back.

6

If you haven’t already, stop using the drive the files were deleted from. Even downloading or copying other stuff onto it can overwrite some of the deleted data. And if you do recover anything, save it to a different drive rather than putting it back on the same one.

7

TestDisk and PhotoRec are from the same project, but TestDisk is more for partitions and filesystem issues. PhotoRec is the file recovery one.

8

I remember seeing Lazesoft mentioned for older Intel Macs. It’s pretty dated software, and I’m not sure how well it holds up these days, but if you have an old Intel Mac sitting around, it might be worth trying before paying for something.