Freeware file recovery software

Age rating For all ages. This app can Access all your files, peripheral devices, apps, programs and registry Run as administrator Write registry entries and files that are not cleaned up on uninstall. Permissions info. Installation Get this app while signed in to your Microsoft account and install on up to ten Windows 10 devices.

Language supported English United States. You may install and run one instance of the software on up to each of ten of your Windows 10 devices that are linked to the Microsoft account associated with your Windows Store account. The software may include third party applications that Microsoft, not the third party, licenses to you under this agreement.

Any included notices for third party applications are for your information only. This agreement is effective on your acceptance and terminates on the earlier of i 30 days following first availability of a commercial release of the software or ii upon termination by Microsoft.

Microsoft may extend this agreement in its discretion. You may receive periodic reminder notices of this date through the software. You may not be able to access data used in the software when it stops running. The software is a pre-release version. It may not operate correctly. It may be different from the commercially released version.

If you give feedback about the software to Microsoft, you give to Microsoft, without charge, the right to use, share and commercialize your feedback in any way and for any purpose. You will not give feedback that is subject to a license that requires Microsoft to license its software or documentation to third parties because Microsoft includes your feedback in them. These rights survive this agreement. The software may collect information about you and your use of the software and send that to Microsoft.

Your opt-out rights, if any, are described in the product documentation. Some features in the software may enable collection of data from users of your applications that access or use the software. If you use these features to enable data collection in your applications, you must comply with applicable law, including getting any required user consent, and maintain a prominent privacy policy that accurately informs users about how you use, collect, and share their data.

You agree to comply with all applicable provisions of the Microsoft Privacy Statement. The software is licensed, not sold. Microsoft reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you will not and have no right to : a work around any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways; b reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software; c remove, minimize, block, or modify any notices of Microsoft or its suppliers in the software; d use the software for commercial, non-profit, or revenue-generating activities; e use the software in any way that is against the law or to create or propagate malware; or f share, publish, distribute, or lend the software, provide the software as a stand-alone hosted solution for others to use, or transfer the software or this agreement to any third party.

You must comply with all domestic and international export laws and regulations that apply to the software, which include restrictions on destinations, end users, and end use. Microsoft is not obligated under this agreement to provide any support services for the software. The software may periodically check for updates, and download and install them for you.

You may obtain updates only from Microsoft or authorized sources. Microsoft may need to update your system to provide you with updates. You agree to receive these automatic updates without any additional notice. Updates may not include or support all existing software features, services, or peripheral devices. At best, you might lose valuable time. At worse, you might ruin your chances of recovering your deleted data.

When selecting file recovery software, look beyond screenshots and extravagant marketing claims and consider the following criteria:. Since your ultimate goal is to get back all deleted files, data recovery performance is, by far, the most important selection criteria you need to pay attention to when selecting the best software.

The software should be able to undelete all commonly used file types, including audio files, video, images, documents, executable files, archives, and backups. Fortunately, there are many great options available to Windows and Mac users alike, and even Linux users have several solutions to choose from. There are several features all good data recovery software solutions should have, such as the ability to preview deleted files before recovery, the ability to recover only specific files, and the ability to recover data from devices that are failing, partially unreadable, or have lost a partition.

As a result of extensive testing of the reviewed apps, we are confident in naming Disk Drill the best free data recovery software. The impressive feature set and technical support for the first-time users score high for CleverFiles. Remember, it can not only recover your lost data but also protect your existing files from being deleted accidentally.

According to our comparison of free data recovery software in , Disk Drill is the best solution available to Windows and Mac users. Yes, but you must choose a trustworthy recovery software application. Outdated applications and solutions from unknown developers should be avoided because they could make the data loss worse or infect your computer with malware.

Since professional tools cost money, they typically offer more features and better recovery performance than free tools. Some Pro tools are visually indistinguishable from their Free counterparts, which makes it easier to transition from the free version to the paid ones. Believe it or not, but professionals use the same data recovery tools that are available to regular users, including those featured in this article.

That depends on which data recovery software you choose. Paid data recovery applications, on the other hand, typically let you recover only a certain amount of data such as MB or 1 GB before requiring you to purchase a license that unlocks unlimited recovery capabilities. Data recovery software uses sophisticated algorithms to find files that are still physically present on the hard drive but whose logical links have been severed.

Image that you have a large book, such as an encyclopedia, and you want to find a specific section. Former computer specialist at IBM. Over the course of a long IT career, he has worked for a number of lar Updated on October 15, Written by. Robert Agar. Approved by. Brett Johnson. Keep in mind that this is an evolving list — it was originally published earlier and is constantly updated.

Unlike the old free version which only recovers first 1GB of data for free, this new version can help recover unlimited data for no cost. As well-known data recovery freeware, Recuva is often downloaded and applied by most users who get stuck in file loss troubles due to unexpected delete, shift delete, format , reformat or virus attack.

As an easy-to-use data recovery program, it is able to help you recover lost data based on different file types and file locations with ease and fast speed. PhotoRec is also a free data recovery utility that helps recover documents, videos, images, archives from computer hard drives, CD-ROMs, digital camera memory cards.

With a Dos-like interface, PhotoRec allows you to use keyboard buttons to give any data recovery order to complete the data recovery process. So, It is a good choice for users who are familiar or get used to Dos-like interface. As a companion program of PhotoRec, TestDisk is much more effective in retrieving data from computer hard drive partitions which are missing, deleted, formatted or corrupted and also have a similar DOS-like command line data recovery interface.

Free Undelete is also another completely free data recovery utility to help people recover deleted files with ease and fast speed. Wise Data Recovery software is completely free data recovery software that scans your hard drives, memory cards and flash drives fast and also recover deleted, missing, inaccessible and lost files easily and effectively.

Glary Undelete is also a free data recovery tool that offers quick and effective ways to retrieve accidentally deleted files from hard drive, camera memory card, USB key or emptied Recycle Bin easily. It also helps analyze the recovery possibility of the selected files with Good, Very Good, Medium and Poor before any data recovery. Pandora recovery is also another best free data recovery software that help recover deleted or lost data.

With a best wizard guide after installation, you can always easily complete the data recovery process and retrieve wanted storage device information with ease. It is nice. Moreover, with a sweet Search and Browse data recovery modes, this software also could be a nice program when you do not want to waste time in scanning entire software and need recover several files, or only a little portion of lost data from a large storage device.

Puran file recovery software is also an easy-to-use free data recovery utility which offers effective features for people to recover deleted or lost videos, images, files and apps successfully, like Deep Scan, Full Scan, advanced Search and more.

Have you found one that is exactly designed for your data recovery problems? No matter whether you will finally select freeware or shareware listed above, hope you can always make a decision based on your own situations and needs. Please Note: In case of any permanent data loss trouble, also never put new data on the original hard drives, flash drives or memory cards before a successful data recovery.

Pros : It is user-friendly and easy to use. Its Advanced File Recovery modes can help retrieve data from most digital devices after most data loss situations. It works well with all Windows operating systems, like Windows XP, 7, 8, 10 and more. All retrieved files and folders will be automatically packed into one folder so that you can check them as you wish. Several options are listed there to select desired files freely, like Find files, Search files, thumbnail, Select all and more.

Click and preview listed files to check whether the scanned files are still recoverable. All recovered files are automatically saved into one folder based on your saving path.

Up to now, it offers Windows and English edition only. So, it cannot work under Mac OS environment. Recuva As well-known data recovery freeware, Recuva is often downloaded and applied by most users who get stuck in file loss troubles due to unexpected delete, shift delete, format , reformat or virus attack. So, it could be really convenient when you do need recover files with the same file types. Scan lost data based on file locations, like choosing "On my medical card or ipod", "In my documents", "In the Recycle Bin ", "In a specific location" or "I'm not sure" options to start a scan.

Allow people to do a Deep Scan when the first scan has failed to find files. The first scan is often completed within seconds. So, it is really fast. Data recovery result report will be automatically shown there after the data recovery process is completed. Cons : It will automatically install CCleaner on your PC, if you do not pay attention to remove the setting before Recuva installation.

If the first simple scan cannot recover lost files, the Deep Scan can take over an hour on a large drive. Without clicking Switch into advanced mode option at the right up corner, you often cannot preview any listed file there.

All the retrieved files will not be automatically packed into one folder, just being displayed there disorderly. While your storage device gets bad sectors or corrupted, many files and folders could not be found and retrieved.