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How to Recover Deleted Files from Flash Drive on Win/Mac

"I saved large amounts of important data on the USB flash drive, but my brother deleted it because it belongs to him and he wanna restore big files. Can anyone tell me how to recover deleted files from a USB flash drive?"

"I do not know why but I click 'Yes' when the permanently file deletion prompts from my USB flash drive. Is there any good file recovery software?"

Recover Deleted Files from Flash Drive

Well, a flash drive is the small storage device, which can transfer files from one computer to another directly. And the USB flash drive is the top choice among millions of users because of its mobility and flexibility. Different from Windows or Mac computer, it seems hard to recover deleted files from USB flash drive. If you have no idea which data recovery software to choose, read this article to get the best method to recover deleted files from flash drive on Windows or Mac computer.

Part 1. Common Reasons for Flash Drive Data Loss

In spite of physical damages like water damages or crashed flash drives, other factors causing flash drive data loss can be fixed. If you cannot figure out which type of data loss can be recovered, you can read the following examples.

  • Deleted files from a USB flash drive by mistake.
  • Deleted files due to unexpected formats.
  • Improper operations like ejecting the USB flash drive incorrectly.
  • Get fragmented or partition was invalid.

Once you deleted files from the thumb drive, the sooner you recover lost data, the higher possibility of undeleting files successfully can you get.

Part 2. Best Solution to Recover Deleted Files from Flash Drive (Win/Mac)

Actually, those deleted files from flash drive still exist with the invisible state. If you do not write new data, they are safe in some degree. To get deleted files back on Windows and Mac computer, you need to install Disk Drill, which is the best data recovery software. There are not only professional data recovery filters, but also free extra tools for storage. So it is just a piece of cake to recover deleted files from flash drive on Mac and Windows computer.

How to Recover Deleted Files from USB Flash Drive on Mac/Windows

You can recover all major file systems and virtually any storage device any file type of any file type in any situation. It may sound a complicated sentence, and the real theme is that Disk Drill is the versatile deleted files recovery software. It is easy to recover all deleted items and output with selectable file formats.

If you have the broken flash drive, using Disk Drill to recover deleted files and preventing data overwritten is the smart choice. Moreover, Disk Drill offers innovative methods to simplify data recovery with customizable recover tools, like "Undelete protected data", "Universal Partition Search", etc. Disk Drill has been the leading data recover software among others, so recovering deleted files from USB flash drive is the small case.

Step 1. Launch Disk Drill on Mac/Windows computer

Free Download Disk Drill on your computer, and you can upgrade Disk Drill to Pro version later. To be honest, Disk Drill offers free service of flash drive recovery. Yes, you can recover deleted files from flash drive free on Mac and Windows. There are also many other free tools including Clean Up, Duplicate Finder and others more than Bootable Recovery. For Mac users, you need to drag it into "Applications" folder to install Disk Drill. Launch the data recovery app on your computer. Connect the USB drive into your Mac/Windows.

download disk drill

Step 2. Scan your flash drive

All files will display in the main interface of Disk Drill including the deleted files. You can preview and choose before each item and then hit "Recover" on the top right corner to recover deleted files from a USB flash drive selectively. You can set file type, file size and deleted data with the toolbars above. In addition, click the eye button near the name of your deleted file to preview in detail. If the USB flash drive fails to be scanned, you will receive the different interface with "Rebuild" button on the original place of "Recover". Hit "Rebuild" and you will enter into the disk repair interface instead.

scan usb drive

Step 3. Recover deleted files from the USB flash drive

There are two options during deleted files recovery, which are "Recovery Vault" and "Guaranteed Recovery" buttons. "Recovery Vault" is the feature allows users to create a special map to locate lost files. And "Guaranteed Recovery" enables users to backup and create the invisible file copies when files are moved to Trash. And you can set the maximum size, data protect period and maximum size of guaranteed recovery storage freely. Complete the USB drive recovery on Windows or Mac OS X/11 computer easily.

usb flash drive

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How to Recover Deleted Files from USB Flash Drive on Windows (Recommended)

Another solution to recover deleted data from USB flash drive is using Apeaksoft Data Recovery.

Compared with Disk Drill, it enjoys a higher success rate to recover the deleted data.

Data Recovery

  • It is capable of recovering the deleted files from USB flash drive, even formatted.
  • Apart from USB flash drive, recycle bin, hard drive, memory card, etc. are also allowed to be recoverable.
  • It recovers images in JPG, TIFF/TIF, PNG, BMP, GIF, PSD, CRW, CR2, NEF, ORF, RAF, SR2, MRW, DCR, WMF, DNG, ERF, RAW, etc.
  • It retrieves the media files in the formats of AVI, MOV, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, SWF, MPG, AIFF, M4A, MP3, WAV, WMA, MID/MIDI, etc.
  • Documents like DOC/DOCX, XLS/XLSX, PPT/PPTX, PDF, CWK, HTML/HTM, INDD, EPS, etc. are recoverable.
  • Email and other data like ZIP, RAR, SIT, and more are supported to get back.
  • Compatible with Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP (SP2 or later).
Download for WinDownload for Mac

Step 1. Download, install and run this USB flash drive recovery program on your computer. Install and run it. Insert your USB flash drive to your computer.

In the main interface, you need to need select the data type that want to recover, and tick your USB flash drive under Removable Drives. Click Scan to scan the data.

Scan USB flash drive

Step 2. From the scanning result, you will see all the deleted data types. Click it to see the details. After checking the data that you are looking for, click Recover to save the deleted data on USB flash drive to your computer.

Recover data from USB flash drive

Here, you can get a video show to recover deleted files from flash drive.

Data Recovery on WindowsPlay

Summary

You can use Disk Drill and Apeaksoft Data Recovery to recover deleted files among most popular digital devices with internal and external storage included.

Compared with Disk Drill, the freeware with limitations, Apeaksoft Data Recovery is more attractive. It is quick and provides you the comprehensive data types' scan and recovery.

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