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It’s happened to everyone at least once: You accidentally select a file and move it to the trash or unintentionally delete data that you urgently need. So what do you do if a family photo or important documents wind up in the Trash on your Mac? Fortunately, there are several ways to recover deleted data in macOS.

On every Mac, deleted files are first sent to the Trash. If the files are also deleted in the Trash, a copy is saved on the hard drive of your device. This copy is not overwritten by other data until later. In other words, even if you’ve already emptied the Trash, your data is not necessarily lost. In this guide, we’ll explain how to restore deleted data on your Mac, either from the Trash, an old backup, or directly from your hard drive.

Mac: recovering deleted files – a step-by-step guide

When you delete data on your Mac, it is first moved to the Trash. As long as the Trash has not been emptied, you always have the option to manually restore files from the Trash on a Mac. To do this, proceed as follows: Pc game windows 7 gta vice city.

Step 1: Open Trash

Double-click the Trash icon in the dock. You’ll see a list of all files that are still in the Trash on your Mac.

Step 2: Select the file and move it to the desktop

To restore a file, double-click it and select “Put Back”. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the file back to the desktop or into another folder.

Did you delete a file on your USB flash drive or external hard drive? These devices have their own Trash, which is hidden. You can use a command to show this folder as well as other hidden files and folders on a Mac.

macOS: recovering deleted files using Time Machine

Time Machine is a native macOS application that automatically creates backups. These backups allow you to restore deleted files on your Mac in an emergency. Once configured, Time Machine backs up your applications and settings as well as other personal files at regular intervals.

You should create backups of your Mac regularly to prevent unwanted loss of data.

All you need is an external storage device such as an external hard drive or a USB drive with sufficient storage space. After connecting the device to your Mac, set up backup/recovery as follows:

Step 1: Configure Time Machine

Go to System Preferences and select the Time Machine backup application. Click “Select disk”, enter your storage device, and specify how often you want the application to create backups.

Step 2: Restore the file from an old backup

Open Time Machine. The easiest way to find this application is by using Spotlight. Go to the date of the backup you’re looking for and open the deleted file in the appropriate folder.

Recovering permanently deleted files on a Mac using Disk Drill

How To Recover Deleted Files Mac Free Downloads

What if you can’t recover the deleted file from the Trash or using Time Machine? Fortunately, files that have apparently been permanently deleted can often be recovered on a Mac and are not necessarily lost forever. macOS stores files on the local hard drive until they are overwritten by other data. With special data recovery software and a bit of luck, you can locate and restore lost files on your hard drive.

For example, you can use a program called Disk Drill. This data recovery software scans your hard drive for deleted files that have not yet been overwritten by the system. The faster you react, the more likely it is that you can use Disk Drill to recover the file you want.

Even Downloading or installing Disk Drill could overwrite data on your hard drive. To be on the safe side, first download the software onto an external device such as a USB drive.

The free version of Disk Drill allows you to search your hard drive for deleted data. However, you need the full version to actually recover your data. Nonetheless, Disk Drill is useful for locating files that you think are lost. Once you’re certain that the file is still in your system after scanning your hard drive, you can download the full version and restore the deleted data on your Mac.

Step 1: Install Disk Drill and scan your hard drive

Install Disk Drill. Note that you need to give the application access to your hard drive. Then launch the application and click “Recover” next to the icon for the hard drive with the data you want to restore.

Step 2: Recover data

Once you've found the file you want to recover, right-click “Recover” again and select the directory where you want to save the recovered file.

If you’re using a Microsoft operating system, you also have a range of options for restoring deleted files from the Windows Recycle Bin.

Get a data lifeguard for Mac

Are you sure you want to delete “THIS REALLY IMPORTANT FILE”?

*Hits Delete*

Wait! I mean Cancel. I meant to press Cancel. I NEED THAT FILE.

Noooooo!

We’ve all been there. Inexplicably deleting a file and regretting it immediately. It sucks. It really does. But it’s not the end of the world. There are ways and means of recovering your files. More specifically, there are tools, tips, and tricks to help you recover your files.

Best File Recovery Apps for Mac

Recover deleted files with Setapp. So that nothing ever gets lost in the shuffle.

In this article, we’ll discuss how to recover deleted files on Mac with the help of an extensive selection of solutions. They will be suitable for a variety of different scenarios that you might find yourself in when trying to recover lost or missing data.

Let’s dig in.

Common reasons leading to lost data

Besides the human error — an example we’ve started this article with, — there are other reasons for having lost files and data on your laptop. Some of the most widespread are software corruption or critical errors, malware, and hardware failure.

While hardware failure can mean your data is unrecoverable, other types of data loss can often be reversed with various Mac files recovery techniques.

Is it possible to recover deleted files?

If you are wondering if it’s possible to retrieve a deleted file on your Mac after you’ve mistakenly removed it or there’s been a software malfunction, don’t worry, it likely is. One of our favorite solutions for undeleting files on Mac is dedicated file recovery app Disk Drill (which we will go on in detail about later in the article), but there are other ways which we shall discuss first, so read on.

The best ways to recover deleted files on Mac

From restoring deleted files from your Mac’s Trash to recovering a completely deleted file, let’s look at some of the best ways to address the recovery of your deleted files.

Check the Trash bin

This might be an obvious one, but just to be sure you didn’t miss anything, click on the Trash icon in your Dock and go through the files there. If you spot the file you need, just double-finger click on it and select Put Back menu option to restore your file:

Retrieve deleted files with Undo command

If you’ve just deleted your file and haven’t performed any other actions on your Mac, here’s how to recover this file from Trash on Mac almost instantly.

Without exiting the folder, press Command + Z hot key combination to see your file return immediately to the folder.

That’s it, just like magic.

Recover deleted files with Disk Drill

Disk Drill is a popular solution among Macintosh users to recover deleted files. The app can help find files you’ve deleted from your Trash or that were lost in a software glitch.

To see all the files that can be restored, install the app and run the Disk Drill scan on your Mac:

Browse the results or search for exact file name or extension:

Select the files you want back and click the blue Recover button at the bottom right. Select where to put your file and you are done.

Recover files from backups on a Mac

To be absolutely sure all your data is secure, your best bet is creating a backup. You can use the built-in Time Machine option or third-party solutions like Get Backup Pro or ChronoSync Express.

All of them have their strengths and weaknesses, so let’s take a closer look and see what fits best with your style of file management and the type and size of data you work with.

To create a backup with Time Machine, open the Apple menu, go to System Preferences, and find Time Machine:

Next, connect a hard drive to create a Time Machine backup and select the files folders you want backed up. You can either back up your full machine (this takes more time and requires more space on your drive) or exclude some of the files and folders to only focus on the items you really need.

After your backup is done, you can go back to that version of your machine any time you want and select the files you’ve lost or accidentally deleted.

To do that, open Finder > Applications and double-click on Time Machine.

You’ll see a set of windows, one after the other. Click on the arrows to the right of the window stack to navigate your Time Machine versions. Once you find the correct time of the backup, browse through folders to locate your missing file:

Click Restore to put it back where it originally was. The Restore button will be greyed out for the files that haven’t been deleted and don’t need restoring. And yes, this method will help you recover emptied Trash on your Mac — if the file you deleted was saved in an existing Time Machine snapshot.

Alternatively, you can use apps to create backups and sync files with more flexibility and customization.

Get Backup Pro is one such solution. The app allows you to set up backup tasks for various projects, create a backup schedule, and customize multiple elements of the process.

Once you set up your preferences, drag and drop the items you want backed up onto the backup project you’ve customized and click the blue play button to do the initial backup.

ChronoSync Express is a stellar synchronization option if you want to avoid multiple versions of the same files and folders.

With the app, you can sync folders, create backups, and schedule tasks:

As you can see, these apps are excellent for a targeted approach with detailed backup management and syncing individual folders at the exact time you require it.

How Do I Recover Deleted Files On My Mac For Free

Is it possible to restore files via Terminal?

If you did a quick search for ways to recover deleted files on your macOS, you might’ve seen guides on recovering files placed in Trash with the help of Terminal.

The step-by-step tutorials suggest to open the app (Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and type in cd. Trash command. Next, to see the files in Trash, the command ls is entered. Finally, to move the file out of Trash to home directory, mv

Explore AutoSave and similar built-in backups

If you’ve lost data while working with popular heavy-duty apps like Photoshop, Word, or Excel, you might be able to utilize the option of autosave. This built-in tool usually create a copy of your file automatically, allowing you to always have the freshest version of your file even if you did not manually save it.

Here what AutoSave looks like in Excel:

You do need to turn it on in advance though (at least for Excel).

Apps like OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive have version history for their files, so if you’ve lost some data, you can try to browse your file versions to see if there’s something you can salvage there.

How to protect your data in the future

Now that you know how to restore deleted files on Mac, you probably realize that some data might be lost without the possibility of retrieval or you want a more convenient way to keep track of your most important files and folders without worrying about possibly losing something.

One option is to create Time Machine backups to keep all your important info on an external hard drive. And for times when you want to have versions of files without having to connect an external drive, you can choose to backup your data to cloud storages, like Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, etc.

You can use tools like Dropshare to easily move any important files to an online storage:

The app is as simple as setting up the drive you want to sync to and then dragging and dropping any file or item you need synced onto the app’s icon in the Menu bar:

As for the apps we talked about earlier, ChronoSync Express is also a great choice to facilitate scheduled backups and help protect any of your important data in the future.

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Conclusion

If you’ve accidentally deleted a file or a folder, or a chunk of information has gone missing due to a system or app crash, you have a few options to try and recover your info.

Even if you think your file is not in the Trash anymore, your first step is always to double check your Mac’s Trash to see if you can retrieve your items from there. Next, you can explore options like Time Machine or third-party backups if you have them. You can also browse through file version history in some apps, like Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive.

Apps like Disk Drill can help you restore permanently deleted files. ChronoSync Express can help sync files and folders, while Get Backup Pro is an excellent tool to create and schedule targeted backups of your data. Dropshare is a handy tool for placing files onto cloud storage and sharing.

The mentioned apps — Disk Drill, Get Backup Pro, ChronoSync Express, and Dropshare — along with over 210 more can be found in app suite Setapp. If you already have a subscription, you can try these apps right now and make sure none of your info gets lost. And if you are not a Setapp subscriber yet, use Setapp’s free 7-day trial to try out all these apps plus dozens more hand-picked productivity solutions.