Guys, help! Is it possible to recover emptied trash on a Mac?

Mac
1

I decided to clean up some storage on my Mac because it was almost full, and of course, the first thing I did was empty the Trash. Now I realize that was a bad idea, because there were a few files in there that I actually need now (old school reports, but I still need them for reference). Can someone explain how to recover emptied Trash on a Mac?

2

macOS even warns you now that you can’t undo empty Trash on Mac once you confirm it. After that, recovering files from the Trash Mac becomes a bit of a “maybe” task. Try scanning the Mac with Disk Drill (it’s a data recovery software), and see what it finds.

3

You can recover trash on mac, but only if all the stars line up. Disk Drill can really help in some cases, but there are a lot of “ifs”.

  1. you should not use the disk where those reports were originally stored. Every file operation can overwrite deleted data, leaving nothing left to recover.

  2. the type of disk matters a lot. If the files were stored on a connected external storage device, your chances are much better. But if they were on the internal mac drive, then it is 99% an ssd, and they usually run TRIM after emptying the Trash. TRIM means the memory blocks get cleared, so recovery becomes impossible. In a case like that, the best option is backups. Check if you have any.

4

I have a relatively new MacBook Air, so I guess the internal drive is an SSD. But I’m actually not 100% sure the original reports were stored there. They may have been on a USB flash drive. So should I scan both the internal drive and the USB drive? And if the files were not overwritten, a data recovery program should be able to recover them, right? Also, is there any way to recover emptied Trash on Mac without software if that does not work?

5

Yes, that’s basically it. If you’re not sure where the reports were stored, I’d scan both the internal drive and the USB drive, but start with the one you used less after deleting the files.

As for other ways to recover deleted Trash Mac files, the first thing to check is Time Machine, if you had it enabled. After that, check APFS snapshots (they’re kind of like Time Machine, but local, and macOS may keep them for about a day if you didn’t connect your Time Machine disk). Then I’d check every other backup-ish place (iCloud/ Google Drive/Dropbox/copies on another device/email attachments/ files sent in messengers).

Recovery software is one route, but backups are a better option if they exist.

6

Last time I tried to recover emptied Trash Mac files, it didn’t work for me. I scanned the drive with a few different data recovery programs, but I think TRIM was faster than me. Nothing useful showed up, only the existing files.

I even contacted a local data recovery lab in my city, and they told me they couldn’t help either. So if your files were on the internal SSD, I’d keep expectations low as much as possible.

7

Ok, I already scanned the USB flash drive, and it actually found a few of the reports I need. But now the program asks me to pay before recovering them. Is that normal? Is there any way to recover the emptied Trash Mac for free? (I know I’m the one who got myself into this situation by emptying the Trash without checking first, but still)

8

Did you scan it with Disk Drill? If yes, then that’s normal and you need the Pro version to actually recover your files. The free part is the scan and preview stage, so you can check whether the files are still there.

If you want a free option, try PhotoRec. But from my experience, it’s not great when you only need a few specific files. It recovers a whole bunch of whatever it can find, and then you have to dig through everything yourself to find the files you actually wanted. The other free option is backups - restoring from them costs nothing.

9

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I’ll post an update a bit later with the result.

Upd: I bought the Pro version and recovered at least a few of the reports from the USB drive. That’s enough for reference, so I’ll take it. I also tried scanning the internal SSD just out of curiosity, and like people here said, it showed existing files. There were some files in the deleted section, but not the ones I needed. Thanks again, everyone!