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Do-It-Yourself Windows File Recovery Software: A Comparison

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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:

Removed two applications: Softtote Data Recovery for Mac, because no new versions have been released since the last review (2020), and Softtote Data Recovery for Mac for its poor performance shown in our 2020 tests.

Additionally, we added two new programs to our tests:

Tenorshare 4DDiG (ver. 3.1.2)

Tenorshare 4DDiG

Reviewed Version: 3.1.2

Prices: 1 Month License: US$ 55.95, One Year Edition: US$ 59.95, Lifetime Edition: US$ 69.95

Host operating systems: macOS 10.15 Catalina – Mac OS X 10.13 High Sierra. Works under macOS 11.1 Big Sur

Support for data recovery hardware: No

Recoverit Wondershare (ver. 9.0.7)

Recoverit Wondershare

Reviewed Version: 9.0.7

Prices: Essential US$ 79.95, Standard US$ 99.95

Host operating systems: macOS 10.15 Catalina – Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Works under macOS 11.1 Big Sur

Support for data recovery hardware: No

Moreover, we continue to test and evaluate the programs which were included in our 2019 review:

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac (ver. 12.5.1 (Build 20201016))

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac

Reviewed Version: 12.5.1 (Build 20201016)

Prices: Free Edition: Free, Pro Edition: US$ 89.95, Technician US$ 299.00

Host operating systems: macOS 10.15 Catalina - OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Works under macOS 11.1 Big Sur

Support for data recovery hardware: No

Disk Drill for Mac (ver. 4.0.130)

Disk Drill for Mac

Reviewed Version: 4.0.130

Prices: Basic: Free, Pro Edition: Month: US$ 89.95, Year: US$ 119.95, Lifetime: US$ 169.95, Technician: 1-Year: US$ 299.00, 2-Year: US$ 399.00, Lifetime: US$ 499.00

Host operating systems: Mac OS X 10.8.5+. Works under macOS 11.1 Big Sur

Support for data recovery hardware: No

R-Studio for Mac  (ver. 6.6.6017)

R-Studio for Mac

Reviewed Version: 6.6.6017

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 10.9 Mavericks. Works under macOS 11.1 Big Sur

Support for data recovery hardware: No

iMyFone AnyRecover for Mac (ver. 4.7.0)

iMyFone AnyRecover for Mac

Reviewed Version: 4.7.0

Prices: Month: US$ 59.95, Year: US$ 79.95, Lifetime: US$89.95

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.

Interface and Features Ratings
Product File recovery features User Interface Localization Support Demo version restrictions File preview
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac5.24.56.05.55.0
R-Studio for Mac 5.95.05.83.56.0
Disk Drill for Mac5.25.05.05.05.0
iMyFone AnyRecover for Mac4.14.55.84.04.0
Recoverit Wondershare3.94.55.04.04.5
Tenorshare 4DDiG3.44.55.04.53.0
File recovery performance Ratings
Product Apple disk and volume managers Emptied Recycle Bin Disk re-format Damaged partition Deleted partition
R-Studio for Mac 6.05.45.16.06.0
Disk Drill for Mac5.24.65.05.95.9
iMyFone AnyRecover for Mac2.84.54.85.45.1
Recoverit Wondershare2.34.44.13.84.5
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac0.74.54.50.00.0
Tenorshare 4DDiG1.83.93.20.00.0

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.

Overall Rating
Product Rating Conclusions
R-Studio for Mac 5.5

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.

Disk Drill for Mac 5.0

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.

iMyFone AnyRecover for Mac 4.5

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.

Recoverit Wondershare 4.1

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.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac 3.6

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.

Tenorshare 4DDiG 2.9

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.

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