Whether a file became corrupted or you just accidentally deleted it, there are few things more nerve-wracking when it comes to your digital life than data loss.
Enter the data recovery app. While you could take your Mac to a third-party data recovery specialists, there are plenty of apps out there that can help you get your data back yourself.
Recoverit, created by Wondershare, is an excellent option if you’re looking or a free or paid data recovery app. Here’s what you should know about Recoverit, what it can do, and why you may want to choose it.
Wondershare Recoverit, true to its name, is a data recovery app. In a nutshell, it helps you can data that you’ve lost or deleted accidentally.
It works because when you delete a file from your computer’s hard drive, it isn’t actually truly ”deleted.” Instead, it remains in the background until it’s overwritten by other data.
Basically, that means that there’s a chance of recovery for deleted files — even years after they were banished from the Trash Bin.
But Recoverit can also help you recover data in cases of system corruption, crashes or malware attacks. In short, it’s not just made for getting back that file you hit Delete on. It’s an all-in-one data recovery platform.
Using Recoverit
RecoverIt is quick and powerful in recovering lost files.
One of the primary strengths of Recoverit is the fact that it’s a very powerful but incredibly simple-to-use piece of software. RecoverIt wraps a lot of data recovery tools in a slick and minimal user interface.
Just take standard delete file recovery. All you do is select a disk and scan it. (On a side note, the scanning process is extremely fast.) Recoverit will then show you a list of files that it can recover even though they’ve been deleted.
All you need to find is find the file using the baked-in preview tool (which support previews for images and videos, too). When you find the file that you’d like to recover, just click on the prominent Recover button. This is great for when you accidentally delete a file or empty your Trash Bin. Just note that you may not be able to recover all files. The only ones that are recoverable are those that have been deleted but not written over.
There are also various recovery options for formatted disks and lost partitions. The Ultimate Edition lets you create boot media, which can help you recover files in those times when macOS just seems to be dead.
Just keep in mind that on newer versions of macOS, you may need to disable System Integrity Protection before the app can actually scan your device. Luckily, Recoverit provides instructions on how to do that.
Are there different options?
Recoverit currently comes in three pricing tiers. And yes, before you ask, there’s a free version — though it comes with a handful of limitations..
The Free version allows you to scan for an unlimited number of recoverable files and preview them. You’ll only be able to actually recover 100MB of data, however.
If you need to recover more, consider the Pro version. It comes with unlimited data recovery and a “deep scan” algorithm that can potentially recover harder-to-reach files. It costs $89.95 a year.
The Ultimate Edition lets you create bootable external media. That could come in handy if your Mac crashes or fails to boot down the road. It costs $99.95 a year.
There’s also an Enterprise license available for companies, which comes with technical support in addition to all of the features of the lower tier. It’s $399.95.
The Ultimate Edition lets you create bootable media in case of system crashes.
RecoverIt Pros
It’s an incredibly simple and easy-to-use tool for any level of Mac user. It’s also quite lightweight, coming in at just 20MB or less. That’s great because no one needs more bloatware in their life.
The prices can get a bit steep when it comes to the Mac version (which actually costs more than the Windows alternative). But data loss is a tricky subject because quite a lot of data is simply priceless — and data recovery firms often charge a lot more than you’ll pay for Recoverit.
While you may be able to perform some data recovery with macOS system functions like Time Machine, RecoverIt still has quite a lot of capabilities that Time Machine doesn’t. Recovering data from external drives and the ability to create a bootable disk, for example.
RecoverIt Cons
As we mentioned earlier, RecoverIt is far from cheap. It’s clear that recovering data on macOS is a more complicated ordeal than recovering data on Windows, since the Mac version costs a lot more. Bringing down the price of the macOS verison could make RecoverIt much more attractive to casual users.
In our testing, we also noticed that not all files were recoverable. This was especially noticeable when working with images where some recovered image files and other media files could not be previewed.
There’s also no portable version of the app available currently. While a hard disk installation is great for most casual use, using your hard disk isn’t always an option in data recovery scenarios. Adding in a portable app option could go a long way toward making the platform much more versatile.
Conclusion
All in all, Recoverit is a great choice for recovering those files that you deleted accidentally or didn’t know you would need later.
Of course, we always recommend backing up your data on multiple platforms and the cloud whenever possible. An ounce of prevention and a pound of cure and all that. But for those specific, stomach-churning situations in which you couldn’t do that (or just forgot to), Recoverit could help.
You can download and test out Recoverit Data Recovery from here
The biggest con for me is that it doesn’t work. And when I tried to contact them for help to see if I was doing something wrong they didn’t respond