Top 15 Best Free File Recovery Software Updated in 2024

2. Recuva

It can recover files from hard drives, external drives (such as USB drives), BD/DVD/CD discs, and memory cards, among other things. Recuva can even recover files that have been deleted from your iPod! It’s just as simple to undelete a file as it is to delete one! If you need to recover a file, we strongly advise you to use Recuva first. This is one the best free file recovery software in 2021.

Undelete files in Windows 11, 10, 8 & 8.1, 7, Vista, XP, Server 2008/2003, and older Windows versions like 2000, NT, ME, and 98 with this programme. Windows 64-bit versions are also supported. A 64-bit version is also available. Recuva is available in both an installable and portable version from Piriform. On Windows 8.1, we used the portable version of v1.53.1087 to test file recovery.

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3. Puran File Recovery

Puran File Recovery is one of the more capable free data recovery programmes we’ve come across. It’s simple to use, will scan any drive that Windows recognises, and offers a variety of advanced options if needed. Puran File Recovery identified more files on our test machine than most other tools, so try it in addition to Recuva if Recuva doesn’t find what you’re looking for.

Even if a partition hasn’t been overwritten yet, this tool can recover it. Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP are said to be compatible. It’s also available in a portable format for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions, so it doesn’t need to be installed.

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4. Glarysoft File Recovery

Glarysoft File Recovery Free is an easy-to-use file recovery tool. There aren’t many options, and it doesn’t compare to some of the higher-ranking options, but it works and is simple to use. Filtering options include file type, date deleted, size, and keywords. This is one the best free file recovery software in 2021.

You can choose which file extensions belong to which categories by adjusting a setting, such as ensuring that MP4s are listed as videos; you can also add your own. It supports the file systems FAT, NTFS, and EFS. We put v1 through its paces on Windows 10.

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5. Freeundelete Recovery

FreeUndelete’s main advantage is its user-friendly interface and “folder drill down” functionality (i.e., files available for recovery are not shown in a big, unmanageable listing). FreeUndelete will recover files from your PC’s hard drives, memory cards, and other similar storage devices. Windows 7, XP, and some Windows Server versions are among the supported operating systems.

We tested it with Windows 10 and found no problems, so it should work with Windows 11, 8, and other versions as well. iCare Data Recovery is a company that specialises in data recovery. You can choose between two scan types in iCare Data Recovery Free: a quick scan that may not catch everything, or a deeper scan that takes longer but will likely find more deleted files. This is one the best free file recovery software in 2021.

ICare Data Recovery Free supports hundreds of file types, so you can bet it can recover anything you’ve accidentally deleted. This programme is available as a portable tool or as a regular, install-able programme for Windows users. Windows 10, 8, and 7 are said to be compatible.

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6 iCare Data Recovery

iCare Data Recovery is a company that specialises in data recovery. You can choose between two scan types in iCare Data Recovery Free: a quick scan that may not catch everything, or a deeper scan that takes longer but will likely find more deleted files.

ICare Data Recovery Free supports hundreds of file types, so you can bet it can recover anything you’ve accidentally deleted. This programme is available as a portable tool or as a regular, installable programme for Windows users. Windows 10, 8, and 7 are said to be compatible.

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7. Windows file recovery

Even Microsoft has a data recovery tool, but it’s not as user-friendly as the majority of these other programmes. Because this one uses the command line, you must type everything you want to do. It is, however, still very simple to use. This is one the best free file recovery software in 2021.

Check out Microsoft’s help page for more examples and information, as this is a bit more of a process than using a standard application where you can point and click on buttons and menus. It explains how to recover individual files or multiple file types at the same time, as well as how to use wildcards. This tool is only available for Windows 11 and Windows 10.

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8. iBeesoft Data Recovery Free

Another excellent free file recovery programme is ADRC Data Recovery Tools. This programme makes file recovery simple, and it is likely that the average computer user could do it without any documentation. Although Data Recovery Tools is designed to work with Windows XP, 2000, and 95, we were able to successfully recover data using this programme on Windows Vista and Windows 7.

This is a 132 KB standalone programme, making it a very portable data recovery tool that will fit on any removable media you have. We also attempted to run v1.1 on Windows 8 and 10 but were unable to do so. This is one the best free file recovery software in 2021.

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9. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can recover files from hard drives, optical drives, memory cards, iOS devices, cameras, and just about any other storage device that Windows recognises. It can also recover partitions! Please keep in mind that Data Recovery Wizard can only recover 500 MB of data before requiring an upgrade (or up to 2 GB if you use the program’s share button to promote the software on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+).

We almost didn’t include this programme because of that restriction, but since most situations require far less undeleting, we’ll overlook it. Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7; and Windows Server 2019, 2016, 2012, 2008, and 2003 are all supported by the Data Recovery Wizard. This is one the best free file recovery software in 2021.

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Mac

Windows

10. iBeesoft Data Recovery Free

CD Recovery Toolbox is a one-of-a-kind file recovery programme that is completely free. CD Recovery Toolbox is a programme that recovers data from damaged or corrupted optical drive discs, such as CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, HD DVD discs, and so on. The inability of CD Recovery Toolbox to recover files from hard drives or portable media drives is an obvious disadvantage.

We haven’t held that fact against the programme because it wasn’t designed to do so. Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, Server 2003, 2000, NT, ME, and 98 all support the CD Recovery Toolbox. We were able to successfully test it on Windows 7. This is one the best free file recovery software in 2021.

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11. iBeesoft Data Recovery Free

This data recovery programme, like some of the others on this list, is completely free to use, but you are limited to recovering only 2 GB of data. You should choose something else from this list if you need to undelete a large video file or a lot of data. Alternatively, you could pay for the full edition.

The file recovery programme from iBeesoft is extremely simple to use. The programme itself is ad-free and straightforward to use.  You can choose a hard drive or folder to recover files from on the start screen, or you can choose the Desktop or Recycle Bin. The website claims to support over a thousand file types, so it’s likely to include all of the common files you need to recover. It can recover deleted files from a wide range of devices, including cameras, memory cards, and music players, in addition to hard drives.

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12. MiniTool Power Data Recovery

Power Data Recovery, unlike some of the other file recovery programmes on this list, requires installation on your computer before you can use it. Because the install may overwrite your deleted files, making them less likely to be recovered, this isn’t the best way to work with this type of software. This is one the best free file recovery software in 2021.

Power Data Recovery also allows you to search through deleted files, recover multiple folders or files at once, export a list of deleted files to a text file, pause or stop the scan when you find what you need, and filter the files by name, extension, size, and/or date. It’s said to be compatible with Windows 10, 8, and 7. This version was tested on Windows 10.

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13. UndeleteMyFiles

This programme has a useful search feature that allows you to search by file location, type, size, and attributes. We didn’t like the fact that, unlike most of the other software on this list, the recovery process doesn’t tell you whether or not a file is recoverable. UndeleteMyFiles Pro worked as advertised in Windows 8 and XP, so it should work in other Windows versions as well. However, we tested v3.1 on Windows 10 and discovered that it did not function properly. This is one the best free file recovery software in 2021.

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Windows

14. iBoysoft Data Recovery Free

IBoysoft offers yet another free data recovery programme. This one is severely limited in that it can only recover 1 GB of data, but if you only need to undelete a few files, or even a video or music collection, being limited to 1 GB is probably fine.

IBoysoft Data Recovery Free begins by asking you to choose a hard drive to scan, and then displays all deleted files in a folder structure similar to the one shown above. You can browse through them in Explorer-like fashion and select the files you want to restore with ease.

When you exit the results screen, you can save the information to an SR file, which you can then open in iBoysoft Data Recovery Free to work with the same list of deleted files. This is useful because it eliminates the need to rescan the drive in order to continue sifting through the results. This application is compatible with Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP.  It’s also compatible with Mac computers (10.9 and up).

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15. Orion File Recovery Software

NCH Software’s Orion File Recovery Software is a free file recovery programme that works similarly to the majority of the other programmes on this list. At the start of the programme, a nice wizard prompts you to scan for specific file types, such as documents, images, videos, music, or a custom file type. You can also search for all file types by scanning the entire drive.

Orion File Recovery Software can search for deleted files on any attached hard drive, whether internal or external, as well as flash drives and memory cards. Then you can use an instant search function to look through the files while quickly determining whether or not they are recoverable.

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