Top 6 Free Mac Data Recovery Alternatives to Disk Drill in 2024 (UTF-8)

This page answers some common online queries about Disk Drill and lists the 6 best free alternatives to Disk Drill for Mac users to easily recover deleted, formatted, and lost data from Mac computers and external storage devices:

Is Disk Drill really free? Are there any alternatives to Disk Drill?

"I accidentally deleted some files on my Macbook and tried to recover them using Disk Drill. The free 'Basic' version made me wait for like 8-9 hours just to scan and see if the data was still there, only to tell me that without a PRO version serial number, I couldn't recover a single file. Is Disk Drill really free? I am just a 10th grader and don't have money to pay. So, are there any other free alternatives to Disk Drill that can help?"

Disk Drill Basic and Disk Drill Pro

In fact, Disk Drill is advertised as a tool to recover deleted files from a Mac and perform free data recovery on Mac in some other loss scenarios. However, according to user feedback, the basic free version of Disk Drill only scans and lists lost files. Check out the comparison table below to see the differences between Disk Drill Basic Free and Disk Drill Pro:

Source: Disk Drill

As you can see in the table, Disk Drill Basic is mostly for data protection and backup. When it comes to actual data recovery, you may need to pay up to $90 to upgrade to Disk Drill Pro for unlimited data recovery on your Mac. Are there any free alternatives to Disk Drill that can recover data on your Mac? Yes!

6 Best Free Alternatives to Disk Drill for Mac (UTF-8)

Check out the list of the best Disk Drill alternatives and find the one that suits you most to recover lost data on your Mac right away:

• Data Recovery Wizard Free for Mac
• PhotoRec
• Data Rescue for Mac
• TestDisk for Mac
• Exif Untrasher
• Cisdem Data Recovery

Read on to learn about the advantages of each free Mac data recovery software and then choose any Disk Drill alternative to recover lost files from your Mac right away.

#1. Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free Edition – Best alternative to Disk Drill

Finding a perfect free alternative to Disk Drill can be challenging since many Mac data recovery tools only allow you to preview lost files for free. When it comes to actually recovering the data, you need to register or purchase a license code.

Fortunately, the free Mac data recovery software – Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free Edition is different. It fully supports you to recover various types of files and data for free from hard drive or other storage devices (like memory card, USB drive, digital camera, etc.) on your Mac.

Learn more about Data Recovery Wizard Free for Mac:

Recommended tool:

3-Step Data Recovery: With the Data Recovery Wizard, you can recover over 200 types of lost Mac data in just three steps, including data lost due to deletion, formatting, virus attacks, and more.

Refer to the three-step Mac data recovery tutorial below for your reference. This software is user-friendly and can be used by all levels of Mac users to perform complete recovery of lost files. Windows users may also turn to the Windows version, Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition, for assistance.

#2. PhotoRec

Unlike Disk Drill, PhotoRec is a free and open-source utility that uses scanning technologies to recover data on a Mac in a text-based interface. You can use it to restore the most common files, especially photos, from both internal and external storage devices on your Mac OS X.

Recommended tool:

- Photo Recovery: Designed specifically for photo recovery, PhotoRec is your go-to tool when you have lost some precious pictures. It retrieves your lost files without compromising on quality, making it a great choice for photographers and designers who have lost their work. - Advanced File Carving: PhotoRec scans your devices at the sector level to locate and recover even more of your missing files.

#3. Mac Data Rescue

Data Rescue for Mac offers a free trial that lets you scan and preview lost or deleted files on external or internal hard drives. It is compatible with macOS 10.10 and later.

It would effectively limit the photos, videos, and documents of business and household users.

Recommended tool:

• Create a clone: Data Rescue for Mac lets you create a clone of your Mac hard drive. With the clone, you can quickly access data using the Quick Scan and Deep Scan modes.
• Create a recovery drive: It also supports creating a bootable disk to safely recover files from the primary hard drive.

Note: Data Rescue for Mac uses the same recovery methods as Disk Drill. Mac users can only preview the found files with the free version. You need to activate it to a full version to recover any lost files. Also, it is not compatible with macOS 10.15 recovery drives.

#4. TestDisk

Similar to PhotoRec, TestDisk is an open-source data recovery tool that lets Mac users restore lost data from Mac volumes and fix unbootable disks to make them functional again. You can also use it to repair partition tables damaged due to software crashes, virus attacks, or incorrect formatting.

Recommended tool:

- Partition Recovery: TestDisk lets you rebuild and repair a damaged partition table, as well as recover lost or deleted partitions on a Mac. - Boot Sector Recovery: If your Mac's boot drive fails to start up, TestDisk can help resolve the issue and make the disk bootable again.

#5. Exif Untrasher

Unlike Disk Drill, Exif Untrasher is totally free for recovering deleted or lost files on your Mac. Similar to PhotoRec, it effectively undeletes JPEGs from digital cameras, external hard drives, USBs, SD cards, and other such devices.

Fully compatible with macOS 10.10 and later, including the latest macOS.

Recommended Tool:

• JPEG Recovery: Exif Untrasher can find your JPEG photos on any kind of storage media and save them back to your Mac.

#6. Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac

Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac supports you to recover lost files in 5 recovery modes – Basic Mac Data Recovery, Trash Recovery, Formatted Drive Recovery, External Device Recovery, and Advanced File Recovery.

With it, users can perform a 3-step recovery of photos, music, documents, and more from their Mac or external storage devices.

Please note that Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac also offers a free trial version that lets you scan and preview lost data. However, you'll need to activate it to perform data recovery on your Mac.

Recommendation Tool:

• Complete Data Recovery: Once activated, Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac supports totally retrieving data lost under various circumstances with 5 data recovery modes.

Tutorial: 3-step Mac data recovery with a Disk Drill alternative

If you need direct instructions on how to recover deleted files, precious data from your Mac, or lost files on macOS and Mac OS X, download and install the best Disk Drill alternative for Mac – the free Data Recovery Wizard for Mac.

Then follow the 3-step tutorial to learn how to recover your data in case of a total loss:

Step 1: Search for the missing file

Select the disk location where you want to search for lost files (it can be an internal HDD/SDD or an external hard drive). Click on the “Search for Lost Files” button.

Note: Before data recovery, it's better to click “Disk Backup” from the left sidebar to create a backup of your HDD/SSD to prevent further data loss. After the backup, the software can recover data from your disk image, and you can use the HDD or SSD again.

Step 2: Browse the scan results

The software will immediately scan the disk volume you select and display images, documents, audio, video, and email in the left pane.

Step 3. Select the files and recover them

Click on the data to preview them, and then hit the "Restore" button to get them back.

Conclusion and Disk Drill FAQ

On this page, we've gathered 6 of the best free alternatives to Disk Drill that can help you recover lost data and files from various data loss scenarios on your Mac for free.

tools Data Recovery Wizard Free is your best bet for a fully functional and completely free Mac data recovery software. Its 2GB free recovery space outshines all other similar tools.

For free options, you can try PhotoRec and Exif Untrasher.

In addition to the free disk drive alternatives, you might have more questions about Disk Drill. If any of these sound familiar, check out our Disk Drill FAQ for immediate answers:

1. How to use Disk Drill for free?

As mentioned above, the differences between Disk Drill Basic Free and Disk Drill Pro are clear. Obviously, there is no free data recovery option for Mac users with Disk Drill, meaning you cannot recover deleted files or restore data from your Mac or external storage device.

While you can use Disk Drill Basic for free to protect or back up data on your Mac, you will need to purchase a license to upgrade to the Pro version for actual data recovery.

If you need a completely free Mac data recovery tool, then tools Data Recovery Wizard Free can help you easily recover all lost files.

2. How to recover lost Mac data without Disk Drill?

When you lose data on your Mac, you can try three methods to recover lost data without Disk Drill:

Method 1: Recover files from Mac Trash by performing Empty Trash on Mac.

Method 2: Restore Lost Data from Time Machine Backup

Method 3: Use a free alternative to Disk Drill, such as Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, to retrieve

3. How to Free Recover Files from External Hard Drive on Mac?

If you have created backups beforehand, you can try to restore the data from the backup when you lose files on an external hard drive.

Generally, Mac external hard drive data recovery can be accomplished through Trash recovery, Time Machine/cloud backup, Mac disk data recovery software, or manual data recovery services. For a comprehensive guide on how to recover files from an external hard drive, refer to the "Mac External Hard Drive Data Recovery" guide for assistance.