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recover lost files

How to recover lost or deleted files on macOS

Losing important files can be a frustrating experience, but thankfully, macOS provides several ways to recover them. Whether you accidentally deleted a file, experienced a system crash, or lost a file due to a hardware failure, there are steps you can take to recover your data.

Here’s a guide to recovering lost or deleted files on macOS:

Check the Trash: When you delete a file on your Mac, it goes to the Trash first. If you haven’t emptied the Trash, you can simply go there, find the file you want to recover, and drag it back to its original location on your Mac.

Use Time Machine: If you’ve set up Time Machine for backups, you can use it to recover lost or deleted files. To do so, open the Finder, navigate to the folder where the file was located, click on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar, and select “Enter Time Machine.” From there, you can browse through backups until you find the file you want to recover.

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Use a data recovery tool: If the file you’re looking for isn’t in the Trash and you haven’t backed up your Mac with Time Machine, you can use a data recovery tool to try to recover it. There are several such tools available for macOS, including Disk Drill, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, and Data Rescue. These tools scan your Mac’s hard drive for deleted or lost files and give you the option to recover them.

Contact a data recovery service: If you’ve exhausted all other options and still can’t recover your lost or deleted file, you may want to consider contacting a professional data recovery service. These services specialize in recovering data from damaged or corrupted hard drives and can often recover data that other methods can’t.

By following these steps, you should be able to recover most lost or deleted files on macOS. However, it’s important to note that the chances of recovery decrease the longer you wait, so it’s best to act quickly if you suspect that you’ve lost an important file. Additionally, it’s always a good idea to back up your Mac regularly with Time Machine or another backup tool to ensure that you can easily recover your files in case of a data loss event.