Recuva - easy way to recover deleted files

The free Recuva program is one of the most popular tools for recovering data from flash drives, memory cards, hard drives or other storage devices in NTFS, FAT32 and ExFAT file systems with a good reputation (from the same developers as the famous CCleaner utility).

Recuva free download

Every day users install and uninstall different programs. In some cases, for various reasons, a system failure occurs and some data may disappear.


The most important data on our computers are documents, photos, audio and video archives. To avoid losing important data, it is recommended to make regular backups. If your data is lost and you don't have a backup copy, Recuva comes to the rescue. It is a free program for recovering deleted files.

Recuva free download

When a file is deleted from the disk, only its entry in the special table (it contains the file name and its actual address on the disk) is deleted. Sectors containing the deleted file are overwritten with new information and after some time the data is irretrievably lost. To avoid overwriting data and its permanent loss it is recommended not to perform any file operations on the disk (writing or copying data). I recommend installing Recuva on your computer right now.

Operating System: Windows
Category: Data Recovery

Recuva key features:

  • Recuva will recover deleted files on your computer, flash drive, camera or iPod.
  • Recover damaged or formatted disks. Even if you formatted a disk so that it looks blank, Recuva can still find files on it.
  • Recover deleted music from your iPod.
  • Recover unsaved Word documents. If you created a Microsoft Word document and didn't save it, Recuva can help you recover Word documents from temporary files.
  • Availability of Deep Scan. Recuva can find most files in one minute.
  • Securely delete files you want to delete permanently.
  • Want to protect deleted files? Recuva also allows you to permanently remove all traces of deleted files.
  • Portable/portable version available.
  • Multilingual: 37+ languages.

Recuva process for recovering deleted files

After starting the program, the recovery wizard opens automatically, and if you close it, the program interface or the so-called advanced mode opens.


Note: If Recuva runs in an unknown language, close the Recovery Wizard by clicking Cancel, go to the Settings - Languages menu and select the desired language.

The differences are not very noticeable, but: when recovering in advanced mode you can preview the supported file types (e.g. photos), while in the wizard you can only see the list of files that can be recovered.

Cost Recuva: $0
File recovery time: 10 minutes
Necessary:
Windows computer
Recuva Software

How to use Recuva

  1. On the first screen, click "Next" and then specify the type of files you want to find and restore.
  2. Specify the location where these files were located - it may be some folder from which they were deleted, a flash drive, a hard drive, etc.
  3. Enable (or not) deep analysis. I recommend to enable - although in this case the search takes longer, you may be able to recover more lost files.
  4. Wait for the search to finish (on a 16 GB USB 2.0 flash drive, it took about 5 minutes).
  5. Select the files you want to recover, click the "Recover" button, and specify where you want to save them. Important: Do not save data to the same disk you are recovering from.

The files in the list can be marked green, yellow or red, depending on how well they are saved and how likely they are to be recovered. However, sometimes files marked in red are recovered successfully, without errors or damage, i.e. they should not be skipped if there is something important in them.

How to use Recuva in advanced mode

  1. Select the drive on which you want to find and restore data.
  2. I recommend that you go into the settings and turn on deep analysis.
  3. Click "Analyze" and wait for the search to complete.
  4. Displays a list of found files with a preview of supported file types (extensions).
  5. Select the files you want to recover and specify where to save them (do not use the disk you are recovering from).

How to download Recuva

  1. On our website, find the "Download" button on the right.
  2. Click the button
  3. The Recuva installer will start the download
  4. Wait until the download is complete and run the installer
  5. Recover your files using our guides above

I tested Recuva with a flash drive with photos and documents formatted from one file system to another and with another flash drive from which all files were simply deleted (not to the trash).
If in the first case there was only one photo, in the second - all the data that was on the flash drive before deletion and, despite the fact that some of them were marked in red, they were all successfully recovered.