Disk Drill Mac Recovery



Disk Drill is a Mac data recovery software designed natively for Mac OS: easily protect your files from accidental deletion with Recovery Vault and recover lost data from Mac disks. Most of storage devices, file types and file systems are supported. You can recover deleted files from iPhone and Android devices! With Disk Drill data recovery software you'll be able to recover your deleted or lost data the Mac way! This means Disk Drill is the data recovery software designed and created exclusively for Mac OS, it handles Mac file system especially well, and also lets you recover data from other hard drives right from your Mac.

Dec 31, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions

There is no doubt that Mac is one of the most robust computing devices on the planet. Despite that, there will be times when you may lose your data on Mac due to any reason, such as:

  • Accidental or unintentional deletion of an important file;
  • Formatting hard disk partitions;
  • Interrupted copy-paste operations;
  • Closing Mac account without saving data;

These are just a few of the many reasons as to why you may need a data recovery software for Mac OS X. Let us now move on to the top 5 data recovery software for Mac OS X in the market.

1. Recoverit for Mac

When it comes to a professional data recovery software for Mac OS X, then Recoverit for Mac is one of the best in the market. With a simplistic interface, a high degree of functionality and stellar customer support, it is one of the top choices of most of the Mac users.

Features:

  • It recognizes over 1000 different file types.
  • Recoverit can be used to find various deleted, lost, formatted, or corrupted data from Mac partitions, hard drives, or the trash bin due to a range of reasons on your Mac.
  • The Wizard Recovery Mode guides users along with the entire process, which is great for the novice of data recovery software.
  • It lets you preview files before recovery.
  • Allows you to rescue data from Macbook, iPod, Mac desktop, USB drives, digital cameras, mobile phones, and other storage media.
  • Recoverit only reads and recovers data without leaking or modifying them, 100% safe.

Advantages:

  • It has a simple and highly functional UI.
  • It supports almost every major file-type.
  • Files can be recovered with all their original file names and structures.

Disadvantages:

  • Scanning large drives take up a lot of time.
  • Options like Raw File Recovery may be hard for beginners to understand and use.

2. Disk Drill for Mac

Another great data recovery software for Mac OS X is Disk Drill. It works seamlessly with OS X and offers you a range of features to make the recovery of deleted or lost files and even complete partitions an easy process on your Mac PCs.

Features:

  • It can recover data from Mac's internal hard drive, external memory devices, and even phones & cameras.
  • It is not just a data recovery tool, but can also be used to protect and maintain your hard drive with a range of other functionalities.
  • Disk Drill data recovery software for Mac supports almost all major file formats.
  • You can save a particular session of the Disk Drill data recovery process and resume it later as per your convenience.

Advantages:

  • It is easy for beginners, and they just need to go through the steps once to understand the process.
  • It lets users preview files before they are recovered.
  • Disk Drill offers a range of functions to ease recovery and prevent such situations in the future.

Disadvantages:

Disk Drill Data Recovery

  • Scanning the hard drive in Disk Drill takes a long time, even for drives that are not very large.
  • The interface is far too complicated and cluttered for a novice user.

3. Tenorshare Any Data Recovery

Tenorshare Any Data Recovery software for Mac is a versatile and effective way to get back your lost files on Mac. You can use Tenorshare to get back your data not just from your Mac, but also any hard drive, memory card, camera, or storage device that is connected to it.

Features:

  • It supports not just media and email files, but also archives, documents, and a lot more.
  • You can recover specific files as per your criteria.
  • Any files that you recover can be previewed and checked before going ahead with the entire process.

Advantages:

  • With Tenorshare Any Data Recovery, you can filter search results to find the desired files as quickly as possible.
  • Unlike other Mac data recovery software, it lets you specify the criteria before searching to increase the scanning time.
  • Tenorshare supports almost all major file types and formats.

Disadvantages:

  • Using it is not as simple, especially for beginners.
  • Making use of its advanced features will require some special knowledge.
For file crash, try other software like Stellar Mac Recovery.

4. Data Rescue 4

Data Rescue 4 is one of the most trusted data recovery software for Mac OS X in the market. With great customer reviews, recommendations from some popular blogs, and a wide range of features, Data Rescue 4 is another option that you can consider if you want to recover lost files from Mac quickly and without too much trouble.

Features:

Disk
  • It can recover data from hard drives that have corrupted, crashed, or do not mount anymore.
  • Any files lost due to deleted Operating Systems, formatting, or damaged file systems can be found using it.
  • Data Rescue 4 works great with Mac OS X 10.7.5 and later versions.
  • Apart from recovering data, it can also be used to make the Mac hard drive more efficient.

Advantages:

  • It ensures maximum chances of recovery no matter how the files were lost or deleted.
  • It can recover the entire drive or specific parts of it as per your requirement.
  • HFS/HFS+ formatted drive recovery can be done through it.

Disadvantages:

  • It is a little complicated for beginners.
  • There are different licenses that you need to purchase depending on how much data you are going to recover.
For formatted data recovery, go there and recover formatted files on Mac.

5. Do Your Data Recovery for Mac Free

Do Your Data Recovery for Mac free is another popular data recovery software for Mac OS X that has a large user base, primarily because of its user-friendly interface as well as the efficiency of the recovery algorithms that it employs. While it may be tough to state as the best Mac data recovery software, this is one that you must check out before making a choice.

Features:

  • Data can be recovered from Mac's internal hard disk, any external memory devices or cameras that are connected to Mac;
  • Lifetime technical support is given to all customers;
  • This data recovery software for Mac is available for both personal and business users;

Advantages:

  • It can recover data that has been deleted, formatted, or inaccessible.
  • Any pictures, documents, or files that you are trying to recover can be previewed before recovery.
  • It supports all major file formats and extensions.

Disadvantages:

  • The recovery process is not guaranteed, and it may not be able to find certain files.
  • There is a limit to the data that you can recover with it.

These are some of the best data recovery software for Mac OS X that you can consider. While these all may appear to be great options, you should only go for Recoverit Mac data recovery software that provides you with the requisite support, is trusted by consumers, and has the features that you need to get back your files on Mac.

Someone might be surprised why we don't make reviews on Recuva for Mac. Get the answers from the page: Recuva for Mac OS X.

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Editor's Rating
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Features
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Positives

  • Deep and effective scan
  • Support for a very long list of file types
  • Excellent filtering options
  • Future data loss protection
  • iOS scan and recovery, even via Wi-Fi
  • Affordable pricing

Negatives

  • Can't recover files from SSD
  • Clean-up utility is confusing

If you have ever experienced the moment when your Time Machine drive failed, then you already know what it means to lose the work of a lifetime or important files. No one wants that, and it’s an issue that CleverFiles’ Disk Drill Pro addresses. Thanks to its support for a continuously growing variety of file types and signatures, the data recovery software is very effective on hard drives and can even narrow down the scan results using its neat filters. The company behind the Atlanta, U.S.-based 508 Software takes a clever approach to customers looking for data recovery software: Disk Drill can be downloaded for macOS and Windows for free to check whether the files you are searching for are recoverable. It’s only if this is the case that you are then invited to upgrade to a lifetime license for $89.

Disk Drill Data Recovery For Mac

Features

Disk Drill’s user interface is simple and easy to understand, with all major features only one click away. The main window displays all the disks that the software recognizes, with immediate options to recover data or continue within the software. A handful of additional tools are bundled in with the software, too, such as a disk health checker, duplicate finder, and data backup – making Disk Drill a complete package.

macOS System Integrity Protection


But when it comes to just data recovery, Disk Drill for Mac isn’t short on options either, with a host of functions open to users dependent on availability:

  • Undelete Protected Data.
  • Rebuild HFS+ Catalog File.
  • Universal Partition Search Scan for Lost HFS+ Partition.
  • Quick Scan.
  • Deep Scan.

Most interesting of all is the software’s ability to protect against future data loss with its additional data protection feature. Activating this will allow users to restore files sent to the Trash or a specified folder for up to a year after their deletion. This is dependent on various settings at the time, but a massive boon for those worried about losing important files.

Scanning

Running the recovery scan requires users to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) on machines running macOS Sierra or later. Although this sounds like a no-no for security-conscious users, it's important to know that Disk Drill does not affect any of the files in the system and that if SIP is enabled, then Disk Drill is unable to scan the disk. This is because with this protection active macOS enables the file system to not only protect files but also to protect the integrity of the drive itself.

Hidden Disk OptionsHDD ScanningSSD ScanningQuick ScanData RecoverySave Scan

Scanning an External Drive


Weak Results


Save Scan Results


We deleted the test files that included the most common file types (such as JPG, XLS, AVI, DOC, PDF) days before we ran the tests on both the internal SSD of the MacBook Pro and an HFS+ formatted 500GB external drive. Despite being able to identify more than 300 different file types, Disk Drill wasn't able to recover any data from our SSD drive. A test with a handful of recently deleted items returned results mostly showing ‘plist’ files.

This was quite the opposite when testing the HDD, however. While the results were quite limited with the quick scan option, we were able to recover most of our data by running the lengthy deep scan. For some reason, though, Disk Drill wasn't able to identify the MP3 files that we had deleted for this test, nor the AVI file. The scan took more than 10 hours, so we chose to pause and then resume the scan as time allowed without any issues. We also saved the session for later reuse, which turned out to be useful since it saved us 17 hours of our time.

Data Recovery

However, with the data protection feature enabled, everything changed. This neat feature of Disk Drill always delivers successful data recovery results, although the major problem with it is that consumers usually turn to data recovery software after they have experienced data loss and want their files back, not before. In other words, while it is very handy and highly useful with 100% recovery results – again, depending on your data protection settings and the time between the data loss and running the recovery scan – it only works if the user already has Disk Drill installed and guaranteed recovery enabled.

SSD Quick ScanGuaranteed RecoveryData RecoveryFile Preview

Disk Drill Guaranteed Recovery


Big Thumbnail Preview


All data recovery has its limitations because its success depends on multiple variables, particularly functions like secure erase on hard drives and TRIM on solid-state drives (SSDs). As such the software developer admits that SSD data recovery is due in the future as the current abilities of Disk Drill (and its peers) aren't enough, which is something that our tests confirmed.

Utilities

Browsing through results would be a hassle without Disk Drill's advanced filtering options. Alongside the file type, the software lets you select data by size and the approximate time frame of when it was deleted. If this still doesn't uncover what you’re looking for, the search field is of great help. Combine that with the big thumbnail preview and you have a great user experience.

Besides data recovery, Disk Drill for Mac includes utilities such as a duplicate finder, which does a pretty good job – delivering decent results in our testing – and the clean-up feature. We tested it using the startup disk of test MacBook Pro, but the results weren't as easy to understand as they would be with Mac optimization software.

iOS Data RecoveryiOS Data Recovery DetailsGuaranteed Recovery SettingsTrash ProtectionDuplicate FinderClean Up

How To Use Disk Drill Mac

iOS Data Recovery Details


Disk Drill Trash Protection


Clean Up Findings


An interesting and noteworthy addition is the iOS and Android device recovery. Disk Drill recognizes mobile devices connected via Wi-Fi and lets you scan them for lost data. It is limited in its capabilities, however, and so for speed and security purposes it's better to connect the device via cable.

Disk Drill for Mac also includes a neat feature called “Disk Health”, a S.M.A.R.T. monitoring service that visualizes the health of the targeted drive.

Pricing

Disk Drill for macOS comes in three flavors, Basic, Pro, and Enterprise, all serving different types of users. The free version, Basic, is essentially software that only serves the purpose of checking whether is possible to save the data of a failing startup disk or external drive. If a scan shows positive results in this regard, then users become ‘eligible’ to upgrade to the Pro version, which costs $89 per lifetime license for a single user on up to three Macs. Add $29 more and you'll instead get a lifetime upgrade.

Those using Disk Drill at a professional level by offering data recovery services can opt for the Enterprise version at $399. This provides an unlimited number of users, activated Macs, free lifetime upgrades, and a forensic data export.

Free

Disk Drill Pro

  • Personal
  • Data protection: recovery vault, guaranteed recovery
  • Backup failing disks into DMG
  • Preview all recovery methods
$89
  • 1 user, up to 3 Macs
  • Data recovery for home users
  • Quick & deep scan
  • Rebuild HFS+
  • Lost partition search
  • All media types and file systems
  • Lifetime upgrades +$29
$399
  • Unlimited users, unlimited Macs
  • Full-featured commercial data recovery package

However, it’s possible to save money on Disk Drill by moving over from a competing service, allowing you to get a license for half price. There's no need to worry about payment methods, either, since the company accepts all major credit and debit cards as well as PayPal, PayNearMe, wire transfer, checks, and purchase order.

Customer Support

When it comes to recovering lost data, it's good to have answers quickly. Disk Drill's extensive help section seeks to address that need by providing various options. Users can search through the knowledge base using the search field or, if they need assistance in getting started, can browse the same section by categories such as basics, data protection, data recovery, and more. The live chat connects users with a real person who can assist them both with their purchase and technical questions.

Disk Drill Contact Form


If chat is not your preferred way of getting an answer, then the tutorials will help in the troubleshooting process. 508 Software even has its own YouTube channel where it briefly explains the software's features. But most surprising is how promptly the company answers emails sent to support, with our email being answered within a few hours. The web form, however, didn't really work.

Bottom Line

Disk Drill for Mac is one of the best options that customers have for data recovery. The free version first checks whether the data is even recoverable, and it’s only when needing to recover that data that the Pro version for $89 is necessary. Don't expect it to work on an SSD, though – that's currently still impossible unless you enable the neat data protection feature, which is to protect against future data loss not recover data already lost. Depending on your settings, you may have up to one year to recover deleted data, though the amount of storage is also a factor since the software needs to store a copy of the files you send to the Trash or a specified folder.

However, the advanced filtering options contribute to the long life of millions of neurons, helping to eliminate any guesswork and help users whittle down thousands of results to just a few. If you are looking for a decently priced data recovery software that has the added benefit of future protection, then Disk Drill is a service worth considering.