Best data recovery software in 2026 — restore and retrieve files on PC, Mac, and mobile devices

We've put the best data recovery software to the test, from ultra-powerful platforms to free options when you just need to restore smaller files from your devices. With so much of our lives stored in data files on our phones and computers, recovery software is an absolute essential to retrieve lost, deleted, or corrupted data if anything happens to them.

Having tested all the top tools for Windows, Mac, Linux, and mobile devices Easeus Data Recovery Wizard is awarded our Editor's Choice badge. This powerful platform is suitable for individuals and businesses, performed exceptionally well in our extensive restoration tests, and offers good value for money compared to competitors. Bonus points, too, for offering a free data recovery plan, too (even if it is capped at 2GB).

For those looking for a more advance program, Stellar also stood out as a top-performing system that works across desktop and mobile devices, with support for byte-to-byte disk backup and restoration and encrypted disk scanning. Read the full reviews below for more.

If you need additional options to secure your data, see our guides to the best cloud backup, and best disk cloning software we've tested.

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Best data recovery software overall

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EaseUS has long been one of the go-to in the data recovery software world with its Data Recovery Wizard.

And 'Wizard' is absolutely the right word here. In testing this software, we found it extremely easy to use, particularly when using the modern, beginner-friendly interface.

There are two scan types available: a quick scan, which sees the Data Recovery Wizard read the drive's file directory and master files to see what's recently been deleted. Quick is accurate here, and we clocked it usually taking seconds, but maybe up to a minute depending on how packed the drive is.

Once this is complete, the deep scan begins, which will be more useful for files that have been corrupted or wiped accidentally. This takes longer, but we can't fault performance. And even during the deep scan, we could comfortably use our computer for general tasks while the app worked away in the background.

Considering what's on offer here, we felt it offered very good value for money, letting you recover over a thousand file formats, including documents, photos and videos, and apps. It's not the cheapest on the market, but that's more than balanced out by the extensive options, features, and performance.

One of the most useful feature is file preview, so you can check you're restoring the right files prior to the recovery process. There's even a 2GB free data recovery service here, which probably won't be enough to restore your drive, but we did think it useful for testing out the software.

Overall, the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro does everything most people will need to restore lost files, with performance that's more than deserving of our Editor's Choice award.

Read our full EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro review.

Best data recovery software for advanced users

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When it comes to data loss, we've always found Stellar Data Recovery to be one of the best out there - but particularly for advanced users and businesses.

We found the software to be reliable, with options to recover even customizable file types. This is particularly interesting, as it means by either defining the file extension or uploading raw file formats of the same, the software will detect the file structure to find others of the same type that have been lost or corrupted.

There are scanning options - a quick scan and a deep scan. Now, when we ran the quick scan on an external hard drive, the process took 25 minutes, which in the world of data recovery isn't especially quick at all. But you do have the ability to pause and resume scans. Nor could we view the deleted files until the scan had fully completed, unlike rivals like EaseUS where this is an option. So, overall, it's a slow process, but the results were very good.

Using the software itself is relatively straightforward, but there is a learning curve here. For example, selecting to pause a scan will do just that - but you won't be able to return to the main screen to scan another drive; click stop and you'll need to re-scan the entire drive all over again. It's all a little quirky, and if you're coming from another tool, it may take time getting used to how best to operate Stellar.

But we have relatively few complaints beyond that. The core function is great, and value for money is superb, with well-priced plans and a good set of features and tools.

Read our full Stellar Data Recovery review.

Best data recovery software for Mac

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For data recovery on Mac devices, Disk Drill remains our top overall choice. While plenty of other software works on Apple's operating system (and this one works on Windows, too), we found the deep macOS scanning via KEXT gives Disk Drill the edge over competitors. Add in free Mac clean-up and a duplicate file finder and you have an exceptionally well-rounded, high-performance tool here.

Using the tool is very simple thanks to an intuitively color-coded interface that feels modern, staying easy to navigate and understand through the recovery process. If we had one complaint, it's that Disk Drill doesn't save your scans. So, after completion, you can view what's been found, but if you return to the main screen before restoration, you'll need to perform a re-scan.

Based on our testing, the feature-set is excellent. There's wide file format support, byte-to-byte backups, and plenty of free tools for monitoring device health across the Apple, Windows, and Android ecosystems.

One of the highlights for us was Advanced Camera Recovery. This featured worked beautifully, letting you restore corrupted and lost image and video files from everything from cameras to drones. If you're a content creator, this is a real stand-out feature. Another tool we really liked was the recovery chance calculator, which does exactly what you think it does: it estimates your chances of a file recovery before you even begin.

Now, we did feel scanning could be slow overall - more than ten hours for a 1TB external drive scan. However, internal drives are a lot faster, with our own tests taking around five minutes to scan 600GB of data.

Price-wise, it's not the cheapest out there, but this accounts for the ability to add it to three devices (many only let you run the software on a single device). We find the lifetime license offers the best value here.

Overall, using Disk Drill felt seamless and beginner-friendly, and we experienced no data recovery issues during our time using it.

Read our full Disk Drill data recovery review.

Best data recovery software for device coverage

While there are plenty of data recovery tools on the market, very few are as comprehensive as AnyRecover. The utility is available not just for Windows and Mac but is also designed to recover data from iOS and Android devices.

AnyRecover touts itself as a data recovery solution for over 500 data loss scenarios for over 2000 different types of devices. The website also claims that over 1000 file formats are supported.

In our first test with AnyRecover, we found it was able to recover 92% of files that had been deleted from a drive, with filenames intact.

The second test was performed on a drive which had been formatted after the files were deleted. In that case AnyRecover was able to successfully restore 64% of the missing files, without their filenames.

Our final test simulated a corrupted/damaged drive. AnyRecover didn't see this at first but as soon as we clicked "Couldn't Find Location" from within the utility, the drive appeared and scanning began. AnyRecover was able to restore all but one of the missing files with their filenames.

AnyRecover can be downloaded free of charge from the main website by clicking "Try it Now". You can use the free version to 'Preview' certain file types and recover up to 100MB of data in up to 8 files.

If you choose to buy in, AnyRecover can be installed on up to three devices and two PCs with a $59.99 monthly subscription, while a yearly subscription is $79.99. A lifetime licence is $99.99 and covers five devices and three PCs right now.

It seems a little bizarre to purchase a one-month plan, in our opinion, and especially at the moment when lifetime access is just $40 more.

Read our full AnyRecover Review.

Best data recovery software for RAID

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Ontrack EasyRecovery is a wide-ranging data loss recovery tool designed for everything from individuals to enterprise and government departments. But what really caught our eye was the RAID recovery, which you don't always find from similar software. Now, of course, it recovers lots of file formats from a whole range of devices, but that support for lost or formatted RAID volumes really stands out to us.

It's worth noting that RAID volumes does require a higher-tier plan, which is more expensive. However, in general, we found costs to be competitively priced and about what you'd expect from others in the market.

Alongside RAID recovery, there's also options to restore files from CDs, DVDs, and external drives - although exactly what features you get depends on which plan you're on.

It's all very easy to use, with a modern look and feel. Even if you're new to recovering data, you'll be up and running in no time. There is an option to preview files before recovery takes place, but you won't be able to actually do this properly until the scan is fully completed.

Scanning, which comes in two flavors - full 'quick' scan and deep scan - turned out to be slow for us. A 500GB drive took around an hour-and-a-half to scan. And that's for the quick option. The deep scan lasted up to five hours, depending on scan location and file complexity.

Performance was good, but not outstanding. True, CPU usage was relatively low at around 4% on average (most use about 10%), and we felt this harmed the overall effectiveness of the software. In some cases, deleted files weren't detected during testing.

Ontrack EasyRecovery is very good at those core functions most people need from a recovery platform, and one of the few to offer enterprise-grade solutions. But to get the most from the service, patience during slow scans and a higher-tier plan are essential.

Read our full OnTrack Data Recovery review.

Best data recovery software for business

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There aren't many data recovery tools we've tested that score a 100% success rate, but CrashPlan is one of them. We found this a robust platform designed for businesses that offers all the tools required for SMBs right up to enterprise.

It's worth noting that unlike rival tools from EaseUS and Stellar, CrashPlan doesn't support signature-based recovery, relying on file copies held on backup servers. Depending on your needs and current set-up, that may be a deal-breaker. In settings where that does work for you, CrashPlan is exceptionally good at what it does.

For starters, this is primarily a backup solution using time-based versioning. So, it's designed to continually take snapshots of important files and drives at preset intervals. In effect, what this means is you get a more accurate and granular file history, as well as all versions stored in a backup archive.

Data recovery is effectively an additional feature working alongside the backup tool. With the way to platform works, so long as your data's been backed up, you'll be able to recover it. Although, there is a hard cap of 90 days for restoration here.

Using CrashPlan was relatively easy - though there is a learning curve, especially compared to software like Data Recovery Wizard Pro. We experienced no slowdowns or issues during our time with it. In one test we performed, recovering around 840GB of audio files backed up on a cloud server took around ten minutes.

But to really make the most of the tool, we recommend spending some time with the settings to strike the right balance between backup process and productivity.

Read our full CrashPlan review.

Best data recovery software compared

Best free data recovery software

As you would expect, some of the best data recovery software is only accessible if you're willing to pay for it. Luckily, for those home users who only want to recover a small amount of data, there are some free options available.

Many paid services will offer a free version with limited features to help you recoup a small amount of data and then try and convince you to pay for the full version. There are also completely free data recovery utilities which may allow you to retrieve your lost files.

In this guide, we'll explore some of these free options. Before getting started, remember that each time you use a drive from which data has been deleted you're risking that the system will overwrite the data.

This is why it's best to install data recovery utilities to a separate device to the one from which you want to recover.

Best free data recovery software overall

Stellar Data Recovery is one of the best data recovery tools we’ve used, with highly customizable searches, a huge file-type library, and deep scan abilities. However, while a number of paid plans are available, there is also a free tier available.

Stellar Free Data Recovery Software offers up to 1GB of free data recovery for both Windows and Mac users. This enables users to retrieve deleted, lost, and unavailable objects from a hard drive, USB stick, or almost any other storage device. All of the advanced data recovery tools are otherwise available. This includes the ability to 'preview' from within Stellar Data Recovery, so you can check to see which files are recoverable even if you're over the 1GB free limit.

During our tests, we found that Stellar was able to recover files that had been deleted from the Recycle Bin without any issue whatsoever. It had less success with drives which had been formatted, however, only being able to recover around half the files. When we simulated a corrupted hard drive however, Stellar was able to recover 80% of the missing files. Scans were completed in seconds.

Overall, Stellar Data Recovery is a great file retrieval tool with powerful advanced options for business. In its simplest form, it enables anyone to retrieve lost data from a computer or external storage device. Paid subscriptions are a little expensive, but the free program’s impressive performance and user-friendly interface mean it's well worth using.

The only concern would be whether 1GB of free recovery is enough for your needs, or if one of the paid tiers would be worth considering instead.

Read our full Stellar Data Recovery review.

Best free data recovery software for file size

DMDE - or, to give it its full title, DM Disk Editor and Data Recovery Software - is one of the best free data recovery software tools around, and has been for years now.

The free version is for personal use, but it's one of the most generous you'll find - in our tests, we found it's almost unlimited in what you get without paying anything.

Now, that is capped at 4,000 files from a selected directory per request. However, there's no limit on how many requests you can make. Technically, then, you could use DMDE free forever, although it may take a lot of time to actually run all those processes. Should you want to unlock its full potential, we found the annual plans to be pleasingly cheap compared to others.

Operating system support covers Windows, macOS, Linux, DOS, and a wealth of file systems like exFAT and FAT32 also supported. It's very broad, and there's even options for recovering custom file types. During our testing, we found it worked very well when detecting and restoring lost partitions, too.

There are plenty of scan options, and the quick scan proved to be one of the fastest we've ever tried. File recovery worked well for us, although in the free version, these can only be processed from the active panel. We recommend opening a subdirectory in the active panel before the recovery process.

The only real issues here are two-fold. The learning curve is a lot steeper than most, and the interface looks and feels like something from the Win98 era. If you can get past that 90s style (or if you like the nostalgic design), you'll find a deeply powerful and very generous free solution for lost data restoration. Overall, though, this could be the only free software you need - provided you work with its limitations.

Read our full DMDE Data Recovery Software review.

Best free data recovery software toolkit

Recuva is a full recovery toolkit, dealing with deep scanning, retrieval of data from damaged drives, extracting files from removable devices, and more. Although it does come with a paid-for version like the above, the free version is definitely worth checking out.

It's not the most comprehensive tool, but it's certainly powerful enough, particularly given that the pro version also adds disk imaging tools for taking full backups of your drives.

Perhaps Recuva's most interesting feature is one that's contrary to its main aim: using its secure delete capability, you can completely obliterate files. This is less surprising when you discover that Recuva's developers Piriform also created the world famous file-deletion tool CCleaner.

Note that usually files are only ever truly deleted when they're overwritten by another occupying the same space on the drive – otherwise, it's merely the reference to their data in the OS that's removed.

By overwriting each of their bits repeatedly with zeroes, even the most advanced data forensics tool won't be able to get them back. Perfect for those highly sensitive documents that absolutely need to stay deleted.

Moving on from file deletion to file recovery, Recuva performed fairly well in our tests. It was able to recover all data intact with filenames from the drive whose files had been deleted from the Recycle Bin.

We were also able to use Recuva's "Deep Scan" feature to restore 76% of files from a drive which had been formatted after the files were deleted, though some of the filenames were missing.

Our final test was a simulation of a corrupted/damaged drive. In this case sadly Recuva was unable to detect the drive, so no recovery could take place.

One of our favorite features, is that at the end of each scan Recuva will display a summary of exactly how many files have been recovered and the time it took. Scans usually completed in seconds, so this may be one to consider if the drive containing your missing files can still be mounted by your operating system.

Read our full Recuva review.

Best free data recovery software for partitions

Presented as a pair of tools rather than a single integrated solution, TestDisk and PhotoRec together recover data from both lost partitions and files.

TestDisk takes care of the partition side of things. The fact that it's a command line tool with no graphical interface might be off-putting at first. If can set this to one side though, there's help on hand to guide you through the process of working with your drives. TestDisk offers support for so many file systems, it should cater to most eventualities.

PhotoRec is the component for recovering files. It's available with a command line interface, but unlike TestDisk there's also a GUI for less confident users. In Windows this is qphotorec.exe. This works in largely the same way as the CLI tool, with the options displayed in a single window rather than a step-by-step series of commands. Recovered partition images can be checked in TestDisk using the terminal.

PhotoRec is cross-platform and can be run as a portable app from a USB stick, which means you don't have to install it on your PC and risk accidentally overwriting the data you want to recover.

Both TestDisk PhotoRec passed all our tests with flying colors. The first test was performed on a drive attached to the virtual machine where the files had simply been deleted. The utility detected all the files within seconds and listed them by type. They were all recovered intact and opened without issue.

We next tested QPhotoRec using a drive that had been formatted after the files were deleted. Once again QPhotoRec didn't disappoint. It recovered a number of files, amongst which were the original ones which had been deleted, complete with their filenames.

We were eager to see if the utility could go 3/3 so, next tested QPhotoRec on a drive with a corrupted volume header. QPhotoRec displayed it as a "missing" partition in the drop down menu, from which once again we were able to recover all the missing files intact with their filenames.

This is the only data recovery utility we've reviewed to date which has been able to recover all deleted files in every one of our tests. This is all the more impressive considering this is free and open source software, so doesn't have subscription fees to pay for developers to work on it round the clock.

Read our full TestDisk and PhotoRec review.

Best free data recovery software for file preview

Despite the inclusion of the word "pro" in the name, this program is still free; there is, in fact, no non-pro version.

The look of UnDeleteMyFiles Pro may be rather dated, but don’t let that put you off too much as there are multiple tools included here, not just data recovery. Recovery can be a little hit and miss as there is no indication of the quality (or recoverability) of files – you just have to hope that the files that are found are in a reasonable state.

We found this to be the case during our tests as when we scanned a drive where the files had been deleted it detected all but one of them including their filenames. However when we tried to restore the files, we found they wouldn't open, either being empty or corrupted.

The utility's "File Recovery" scan was unable to find any files on the drive that had been formatted after the files were deleted. We had the same results when using the "Media Scan" feature.

When we tested with a simulated corrupted drive, UnDeleteMyFiles Pro wasn't able to see this at all, so no recovery could take place.

When it comes to data recovery, there aren't really all that many options other than the ability to search for particular types of files to reduce the size of the list you have to sort through. There's no indication of the quality of files, as we saw when we attempted to restore deleted ones only to find they couldn't be opened.

One saving grace of this utility is that it contains a disk snapshot tool which can create an image of your drive as a single file. This allows you to attempt data recovery without risking making things worse. You can also send the image to professional data recovery services if necessary, which is a much better option than mailing your entire device to them.

There's also a secure file deletion tool, and email recovery.

Best free data recovery software for recovery prediction

When it comes to ease of use, it's hard to beat Wise Data Recovery. Although this free data recovery software doesn't have a wizard-led interface, there are no complicated configuration settings to worry about either.

Tracking down recoverable data is a simple matter of selecting the drive you want to check and clicking 'Scan'. Alternatively, you can use keywords to search for recoverable files so you don’t have to wade through quite so many results.

Whichever route you choose, recoverable data is presented in an Explorer-like tree structure that makes it easy to tell where it was originally stored. Like all the best free data recovery software, Wise Data Recovery uses a traffic light system to indicate the health of files (and therefore how likely it is that you'll be able to recover them intact, and there's a file preview feature so you can identify files that have been detected.

You can recover individual files, or entire folders at once, but selecting numerous files in several locations means performing several operations.

The free version of Wise Data Recovery is one of the most generous free photo recovery options you’ll find anywhere. Its 2GB recovery limit is better than most no-cost rivals, and you can use the free download on an infinite number of systems and with no time restrictions.

Our first test was on a deleted drive whose files had been emptied from the Recycle Bin. Wise performed a scan in less than 3 seconds and was able to recover all the original files with their filenames intact.

Wise Data Recovery didn't do quite so well on the drive that had been formatted after the files were deleted. In that case only around half the files were recovered. With one exception the filenames were intact.

Finally we ran a scan on our simulated corrupted drive. The utility was able to recognize the "Lost Drive" almost immediately and recovered all the original files, with filenames intact.

Read our full Wise Data Recovery review.

Best free data recovery software for user experience

Finding recoverable data with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free is very simple: select a drive or folder and wait for a few minutes while it completes its scan.

You can browse through the recoverable data using a Windows Explorer style interface and filter them by type or opt to search for specific files. Data recovery is effective, but the Deep Scan option is very slow, so you'll need to be patient.

The installation of this software is a mixed experience. The installer, importantly, advises not to install to the same drive that you want to recover data from because this could overwrite data and render it unrecoverable. It also, sadly, tries to enrol you in a customer experience improvement program, without explaining what this entails.

It's worth noting that the free version only allows for the recovery of up to 2GB of data, so it's not going to be suitable for all circumstances, but it will be enough to get you out of most sticky situations.

We had a hard time actually receiving this free allowance during our tests, as after attempting to recover a 100MB folder on a 512MB drive just three times, our allowance was reduced to around 200MB. It's possible the 2GB limit may apply to the size of the drive being scanned instead of the amount of data recovered.

However, during all our tests EaseUS ran incredibly quickly. It detected the virtual drives and ran scans in seconds. In our first test, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard lived up to its name, as it was able to retrieve all of the files on the drive which had previously been deleted from the Recycle Bin.

The utility also performed well on our test on a drive which had been formatted after the file had been deleted, recovering 76% of the missing files. We were particularly impressed that EaseUS was able to recover the filenames too.

We also ran a test simulating a damaged drive. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard immediately recognized it as a "lost partition", where we were able to preview all of the deleted files, complete with filenames.

Read our full EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free review.

Best free data recovery software for Mac

A leading Mac data recovery service, which is also available on Windows, Disk Drill is designed to recover data from a range of devices and drives: hard disk drives, solid-state drives, USB flash drives, SD/CF cards, digital cameras, and even smartphones. The website boasts that any lost data file type can be recovered, from almost any data loss scenario you can think of.

The "Preview" feature is also essential, as it allows you to examine files in a way that's more difficult with the "Recovery Fault" which doesn't always assign correct filenames to data.

We were pleased to see that scans of the test drives completed in just a few seconds.

In our first test the utility was able to find all the deleted files that we'd sent to the Recycle Bin. Our next test was on a drive which had been formatted after the files had been deleted. Disk Drill proved itself equal to the task and was able to produce all of the original files, with filenames intact.

For our final test, we simulated a corrupted/damage drive. Although the drive itself wasn't visible in Windows Explorer, upon launch Disk Drill proudly proclaimed "Woohoo! Lost Partitions Found!". It then recovered all of the files, though the filenames for two of them were missing.

This means that Disk Drill is one of the very few data recovery utilities to have passed all our tests with flying colors.

Disk Drill's complete collection of features for every imaginable platform and scenario is impressive enough. Its ability to effortlessly mount and read a previously unmountable drive and recover the data from it within a comparatively small timeframe proves that Disk Drill is a recovery tool that you should be considering.

The free version of Disk Drill only allows you to recover up to 500MB of data. After that you need to pay a one-time lifetime license fee. Overall, this is an excellent recovery utility for both Windows and Mac.

Read our full Disk Drill data recovery review.

Best free data recovery software for beginners

Ontrack EasyRecovery remains one of the best data recovery software applications we've tested - its modern and intuitive interface makes it ideal for beginners or those who just want simplicity. But don't let that fool you, this is a vastly powerful recovery tool.

The Free plan provides up to 1GB of data recovery. There's also a size limit of 25MB on recovered files, though you can 'Preview' lost files to check if they can be recovered with the paid version.

During our tests we tried to run the "Deep Scan" feature, only for the utility to become unresponsive each time the scan reached 99% whilst trying to read a particularly nasty data cluster.

Regular scans on the other hand ran extremely fast. Our first test on the drive where the files had simply been deleted then emptied from the Recycle Bin Ontrack EasyRecovery recovered all the files with the filenames intact.

It wasn't quite so successful with the drive that had been formatted after the files were deleted. In that case some system files were recovered but none of the ones we deleted.

Our final test was on a drive with a corrupted volume header. Ontrack EasyRecovery's "Recover From" has a "Can't Find Drive" option, which we clicked and the external hard drive was displayed immediately.

On the first scan, the utility was able to restore the lost partition in order for it to be scanned. (We noticed that it still didn't appear in File Explorer however).

We then tried to run a regular scan. Unfortunately this was the point at which the utility became unresponsive, simply saying 0% scanned. We left it this way for around 15 minutes before being forced to exit via Ctrl + Alt + Del.

Where Ontrack EasyRecovery falls down is the rather binary options offered for data recovery. Our experience was that the utility can do a superficial scan that retrieves only a few files or a huge in-depth sector by sector scan which crashes the app.

Ideally we'd like to see some fine-tuning options, such as searching for 'raw' data for files or the ability to stop a scan cleanly before it's complete to review what data's been recovered.

Read our full Ontrack EasyRecovery review.

Best free data recovery software for iPhones

MyRecover is a comprehensive and free data recovery software from AOMEI. Previously known as AOMEI Data Recovery, the software is available for both Windows and iOS.

With MyRecover, users can retrieve all kinds of lost data, including those lost through the Recycle Bin, deleted files, files lost in formatting, lost in system crashes, and virus attacks.

There are two modes available - a quick scan and a deep scan, depending on the amount of data lost, and the method through which it was deleted.

You can recover lost data from almost all Windows storage media, such as HDD, SSD, external hard drive, USB drive, digital camera, SD card, and similar.

For Windows, there’s support for NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, ReFS in Windows 11/10/8/7 and Windows Server, while for iOS there’s support for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch with iOS 10 and later, including iOS 17.

On both platforms, you can recover various data including images, videos, emails, photos, contacts, call history, and many more.

Apart from a free option, MyRecover also has paid plans, aimed at those that want more advanced features.

Windows users get to choose between the Pro and Technician plans. The former is more suited for individual users or home offices, and it’s priced at $59.95 yearly or $99.95 for a lifetime (one-time) purchase. The Technician plan is made with enterprises in mind and is priced at $199 yearly or $399 for a lifetime purchase.

For iOS users the plan is priced at $29.95 yearly or $69.95 for a lifetime purchase.

Best data recovery software: FAQs

How we tested the best data recovery software

To test for the best data recovery software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for recovering data using a virtual machine running Windows 11, to which we attached three different drives. This allowed us to benchmark various data loss scenarios, such as trying to recover files from a corrupted drive.

The files we chose for recovery are an album of Mozart's Music available from the Internet Archive. We did this as we wanted to see how the utility performed with a wide variety of files, including both common and more obscure formats.

The aim was to push each software platform to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools.

We do not believe that running data recovery tools in a virtual environment has a significant effect on how they function. Still, if you're considering buying software we encourage you to read all reviews thoroughly and make sure that the developer offers a refund policy.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.

We've also tested the best document editing and management software.

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