The Best Data Recovery Software for Macintosh - Review 2021
Although Macs have earned the reputation of a very reliable computer platform, still their users may suffer file loss. Sudden system crashes, abrupt power outages, hardware malfunctioning, human errors, etc., are the main causes for such events. Regular file backups to an external storage or the cloud significantly reduce risks of such loss, but they still exists. And when a disaster strikes, you need to get your files back.
There are cases, like hard drive failure or its physical damage, when professional file recovery is the only option, though quite expensive. But when all hardware is functioning, you may do file recovery yourself using a file recovery app.
There are many such apps, but which one to choose? Every site claims that their app can recover everything, but reality may differ from their promises. Not all apps perform equally well. Some apps work well in one case, and poor in others. Moreover, sometimes file recovery cannot be fully successful due to the nature of damage to the file system. You may try one app after another as most apps allow you to evaluate them for free, but that will take a long time and may inflict more damage to your lost files.
There are many app reviews on the Internet to help you make your choice, but most of them have one common drawback: they give you some general estimations derived from several tests, but you need to know how the app performs in your particular case. That is why we present the test results for many typical file recovery scenarios. If you are searching for a file recovery app best for your case, we recommend you to look at the most suitable typical scenario and choose the app with the best results.
An app should be convenient to use. That is why we also evaluate an app interface, its features, demo mode restrictions, etc. These results are combined in our feature rating tables. If you want to choose an app for possible future use, they will help you to make a right choice.
Tested Software
We use the following criteria to include a file recovery app into our comparison:
An app designed for use by an average Macintosh user.
Support for Apple file systems.
Support for specific Apple features like Time Machine, Core Storage, Apple RAIDs, etc.
Affordable prices.
2021
2020
2019
Macintosh File Recovery Software Tested and Evaluated in 2021.
We have the following changes for the 2021 update of our data recovery software for Macintosh review:
Host operating systems: macOS 10.15 Catalina – Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Works under macOS 11.1 Big Sur.
Support for data recovery hardware: No
For your convenience, we consolidated the results of our evaluation and tests into an interactive table below. You can click the column title to expand the column into a full tab to see more detailed results of the evaluation or test. Some tabs also include additional test / evaluation descriptions and brief conclusions.
In our 2021 Macintosh file recovery review, the first three programs remain the same as in 2020: R-Studio for Mac again won first place because of its excellent combination of file recovery features and performance. Second place went to Disk Drill for Mac, followed by iMyFone AnyRecover for Mac. All these programs have the necessary features for solving almost all file recovery task and they all displayed very good results in file recovery. All three programs have a direct access to SIP-protected disks (SIP - System Integrity Protection) which allows their users to recover files from the system disk without having to disable this feature.
One of the new programs, Wondershare Recoveryit, showed quite good results, winning the fourth overall score, while the other program, Tenorshare 4DDiG, performed quite unimpressively and took the final score.
We conducted all tests on the old macOS Catalina to ensure stable operations. We also tested basic functionality for all programs on the new macOS Big Sur operating system. All six programs can run on this operating system.
This is the Mac version of the well-esteemed professional data recovery program R-Studio. The program has the richest set of supported file systems and recovery parameters, a very powerful file previewer, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, support for the most Apple logical disk managers, and a direct access to a SIP-protected system disk. It showed the best file recovery results.
Its weak points are a non-wizard interface, which may be a little bit confusing for inexperienced users, and the lack of support for Apple native images (dmg).
Since our last review: fast scan for lost partitions and instant detection of deleted partitions have been added.
A program with a very good wizard interface, a decent file system set, and a good set of recovery features. Its strong points include direct access to a SIP-protected system disk and a special agent to constantly monitor S.M.A.R.T. disk attributes. Its demo mode restrictions are quite user-friendly: it recovers files up to 500 MB. It showed the second score in file recovery and the best results for formatted HFS+ and APFS partitions. It has only one weak point: an English-only interface.
A program with a good wizard interface, a good set of file recovery features, and the third score in file recovery. Its strong points are: a large number of supported interface languages (10) and direct access to a SIP-protected system disk. As to its file recovery performance, it’s become much better compared with the results shown in our previous tests (2020) – there have been no crashes, which had significantly worsened file recovery performance score in prior tests.
There are two weak points of this program: the lack of S.M.A.R.T. capabilities and strange behavior in recovery from a Mac APFS Fusion drive. The program immediately found it, but then a message appeared saying that this version could not recover files “due to Apple’s Policies” and suggested to install the previous version. The previous version could not recover anything.
A program with a standard wizard interface, a decent feature set, and the fourth score in file recovery. Its strong point is the support for the NTFS file system which allows its user to recover files from Windows disks. It weak points are: an English-only interface and no S.M.A.R.T. monitoring capabilities. Also, its previewer cannot show files larger than 15 MB.
A program with a simple wizard interface and a quite good set of file recovery features. Its strong points are: the largest number of interface languages (15), direct access to a SIP-protected disk, a good built-in file previewer, powerful disk imaging capabilities, and very good S.M.A.R.T. state monitoring. However, its most attractive feature is the minimum demo mode restrictions: up to 2 GB can be recovered in its free version. So, if you need to recover a small amount of data, this program is definitely worth looking at.
Unfortunately, its recovery performance is very inconsistent. When it was able to recover files, the results were quite good (the third/fourth scores), but the program apparently cannot work with a disk that has no valid partitions on it, and therefore completely failed file recovery from damaged and deleted partitions. To test this assumption, a partition was created on a disk with a deleted partition, as it had been done in our previous review. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac was able to scan the disk, and it found the deleted partition and its entire file system.
A program with a good wizard interface, average set of file recovery features, and the last score for file recovery performance. The single strong point of this program is that it’s one of only two programs in our test that support APFS Fusion Drive, with the other being R-Studio for Mac. On the other hand, it has an English-only interface, no disk image support, no S.M.A.R.T attribute monitoring, and no direct access to SIP-protected disks. In addition, it apparently could not recover data from a hard drive without an existing partition - it simply didn’t appear in the list of storage device. That is why it completely failed two test sets: file recovery from damaged and deleted partitions.
Macintosh File Recovery Software Tested and Evaluated in 2020.
For the 2020 update of our data recovery software for Macintosh review we have made the following changes:
data recovery from Apple encrypted volumes replaced data recovery from Apple core storage volumes ;
data recovery from Mac APFS fusion drives replaced data recovery from Apple Time Machine backup volume,
due to the fact that the new cases are more frequent in real data recovery practice.
Also, all disks now were partitioned using the GUID Partition Map scheme, except for the FAT32 memory sticks, where the MBR partitioning was used.
Prices: R-Studio for Mac: US$ 79.99, R-Studio for Mac Network: US$ 179.99, R-Studio for Mac Technician: US$ 899.00
Host operating systems: macOS 10.15 Catalina - OS X 10.5 Leopard
Support for data recovery hardware: No
For your convenience, we consolidated the results of our evaluation and tests into an interactive table below. You can click the column title to expand the column into a full tab to see more detailed results of the evaluation or test. Some tabs also include additional test / evaluation descriptions and brief conclusions.
In our 2020 Macintosh file recovery review, R-Studio for Mac again won the first place with the highest score, mostly because of its excellent file recovery performance. The second place went to Disk Drill for Mac, followed by the newly added program AnyRecover for Mac. All these programs have all features necessary for solving almost all file recovery tasks and showed very good results in file recovery. The other new programs performed quite impressively.
Some special notes about EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac: It showed quite strange results in file recovery tests. When it was able to recover files, it performed quite decently. But it failed many tests, mostly those when it was necessary to work with disks without valid partitions. That is why it showed the worst results in file recovery. As a result of its strong file recovery features and the lowest demo mode restrictions, it finished next to last in our review. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, for both for Mac and Windows, deservingly earned quite a good reputation as file recovery software, and such failures look very odd in contrast.
Being the Mac version of the well-known professional data recovery program R-Studio, it inherits all its strong and weak points. It has the richest set of supported file systems and recovery parameters, a very powerful file previewer, disk S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, disk imaging, support for various Apple logical disk managers, like APFS Fusion Drive, Apple RAID0, and alike, and many more. Moreover, it is able to access files on a system disk with SIP (System Integrity Protection) enabled. It also showed the best file recovery performance among all tested programs. Its weak points are a non-wizard interface which may be a little bit confusing for inexperienced users and lack of support for Apple native images (dmg).
The program has a good wizard interface, quite good set of recovery features, and the second score for recovery performance. It can recover files from a system disk with enabled SIP, supports Apple native images (dmg), Apple encrypted volumes, and RAID0. A special agent can be installed to constantly monitor S.M.A.R.T. disk attributes. The program showed the best performance in file recovery from emptied Bin and damaged partitions (together with R-Studio for Mac). The weak point of the program is the lack of support for file recovery from Apple APFS Fusion Drive. Overall, a very decent program.
A program with a good wizard interface, good set of file recovery features, and the third score for file recovery performance, especially for emptied Bin. It can recover files from Apple APFS Fusion Drives and RAID0. Its weak points are the lack of direct access to SIP-protected disks, no disk imaging, and no S.M.A.R.T. monitoring.
It crashed during three tests, and this significantly lowered its file recovery performance score, which performed quite well in other tests.
A program with a good wizard interface, good set of file recovery features, and the fourth score for file recovery performance. It was able to recover files from Apple RAID0. Its weak points are the lack of direct access to SIP-protected disks, no disk imaging, and no S.M.A.R.T. monitoring.
It crashed when recovering deleted files from a FAT32 memory stick.
A program with a simple wizard interface and a quite good set of file recovery features. It can recover files from a system disk with enabled SIP. A special agent can be installed to constantly monitor S.M.A.R.T. disk attributes. The program has the minimum demo mode restrictions: up to 2 GB can be recovered in its free version. The weak points are the oversimplified user interface and a lack of disk imaging capabilities. If you need to recover a small amount of data, this program is definitely worth looking at.
This year the program showed quite unstable results in file recovery. When it was able to recover files, the results were quite good. But it completely failed 12 tests for unknown reasons. It looks like the program cannot work with disks with no valid partitions on it, which is why it showed extremely poor performance for file recovery from damaged and deleted partitions. To test this assumption, a partition was created on a disk with a deleted partition. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac was able to scan the disk and it found the deleted partition with all of its file system intact.
The program has an average wizard interface, average set of file recovery features, and very poor file recovery performance. The only good feature in the program is that its users can add their own file types.
Macintosh File Recovery Software Tested and Evaluated in 2019
After applying the above criteria, we compiled a list of the apps that are available for download on the Internet and have been widely recommended or reviewed on blogs, forums and social media. The software tools we chose to test and compare are listed below:
Host operating systems: macOS 10.14 Mojave - OS X 10.5 Leopard
Support for data recovery hardware: No
For your convenience, we consolidated the results of our evaluation and tests into an interactive table below. You can click the column title to expand the column into a full tab to see more detailed results of the evaluation or test. Some tabs also include additional test / evaluation descriptions and brief conclusions.
In our 2019 Macintosh file recovery review, R-Studio for Mac won the first score place mostly because of its excellent file recovery performance. The second place went to Restorer Ultimate for Mac, followed by Disk Drill for Mac and EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. All these programs have all features necessary for solving almost all file recovery tasks and showed very good results in file recovery.
Being the Mac version of the well-known professional data recovery program R-Studio, it inherits all its strong and weak points. It has the richest set of supported file systems and recovery parameters, a very powerful file previewer, disk S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, disk imaging, support for Apple RAID0 and Apple Core Storage volumes, and many more. Moreover, it is able to access files on a system disk with SIP (System Integrity Protection) enabled. It also showed the best file recovery performance among all tested programs. Its weak points are a non-wizard interface which may be a little bit confusing for inexperienced users and lack of support for Apple native images (dmg) and direct file recovery from Apple Time Machine.
Restorer Ultimate for Mac is a program that combines the best wizard-oriented interface,
a rich set of supported file systems and recovery parameters, and excellent file recovery performance. It has a very powerful file previewer, disk S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, disk imaging, support for Apple RAID0 and Apple Core Storage volumes, etc. Its file recovery performance is the second best among the tested programs.
The weak point of the program is the fact that it can access files on a system disk only when SIP is disabled. It also has no support for Apple native images (dmg) and direct file recovery from Apple Time Machine.
The program has a good wizard interface, quite good set of recovery features, and good recovery performance. It can recover files from a system disk with enabled SIP, supports Apple native images (dmg), and Apple RAID0. A special agent can be installed to constantly monitor S.M.A.R.T. disk attributes. The program showed the best performance in file recovery from deleted partitions. The weak point of the program is the lack of support for file recovery from Apple Time Machine. Overall, a very decent program.
A program with a simple wizard interface, quite good set of file recovery features, and good file recovery performance (the best results in file recovery from emptied Trash). It can recover files from a system disk with enabled SIP and supports direct recovery from Apple Time Machine. A special agent can be installed to constantly monitor S.M.A.R.T. disk attributes. The program has the minimum demo mode restrictions: up to 2 GB can be recovered in its free version. The weak points are the oversimplified user interface and no disk imaging capabilities. If you need to recover a small amount of data, this program is definitely worth looking at.
The program has a decent wizard interface, average set of file recovery features, and average file recovery performance. It supports direct recovery from Apple Time Machine and Apple native images (dmg). Weak points are the lack of support for the APFS file system and S.M.A.R.T. disk monitoring. Also, it cannot access files on a system disk when SIP is enabled. The program completely failed in file recovery from damaged APFS and HFS+ partitions.
A program with a good wizard interface, average set of file recovery features, and average file recovery performance. It has S.M.A.R.T. disk monitoring capabilities and can recover files directly from Apple Time Machine volumes. Weak points are no support for the APFS file system and disk imaging. Also, it cannot access files on a system disk when SIP is enabled.
A program with a good wizard interface, poor file recovery features, and below average file recovery performance. It has no support for the APFS file system, disk imaging, S.M.A.R.T. disk monitoring capabilities. The program failed in file recovery from damaged FAT32, exFAT, and APFS partitions. We cannot recommend this program.
