How can I recover permanently deleted files on Mac?

[Kelso]

Hey all, I made a huge mistake today. Deleted a folder I actually need... and... emptied the Trash too. 😭 Is there any way to undo it? I’ve been clicking around trying to find some kind of “undo” or restore option but no luck so far.
Has anyone actually managed to recover permanently deleted files on a Mac? Is it even possible, or am I just completely done here? Appreciate any advice.
M1 MacBook running macOS Sequoia if that matters.

 

UPD: Just circling back in case anyone finds this thread later. I ended up trying Disk Drill from a USB stick like some suggested, and it worked out way better than I expected. Found almost everything I needed, most files showed High recovery chances, previews worked, and the original folder structure was (mostly) intact too. Everything’s good now. Huge relief. 😅
Also… yes, I’ve started setting up Time Machine now. Lesson learned.

Edited April 28 by Kelso

[D_Harris_05]

Do you have Time Machine set up? Or maybe iCloud Drive? especially if those files were in your Desktop or Documents folders. If so, you might be able to recover them without needing any recovery software.

If not… then your only option now is third-party recovery tools, there’s no real way to undelete files on Mac once they’re out of the Trash.

 

Edited June 17, 2025 by D_Harris_05

[UrbanExplorer7]

Yeah, been there. Here’s what you need to do, like, first thing: stop using your Mac. Seriously. Every file you create, every browser tab you open… all of that can overwrite the space where your deleted files used to be.
If you have access to an external drive, install recovery software on that, not on your main system drive. I’ve had a really good experience with Disk Drill in a similar situation. Once it’s installed, run a scan on your internal drive (I’m guessing that’s where the deleted folder was). Let it finish scanning (it might take a while) then use the filters to narrow things down. You can search by file name, or just filter for file types like videos, images, documents...
You still have a chance if you act quickly. Just don’t save or install anything on your Mac until after the recovery.

 

[tadoka]

Where exactly were the files stored? If it was your system drive, then yeah… bad news. That’s an SSD (M1 Macs use them) and when you delete something, macOS sends a TRIM command almost right away. That wipes the actual data blocks pretty fast, so chances of recovery are close to 0.
Now, if the files were on an external drive, it’s a different story. Even if it’s an SSD, you’ve got better odds, especially if it was connected via USB Type-A or Type-C through a hub. In setups like that, macOS usually won’t send TRIM commands to the external SSD at all. So the deleted data might still physically be there and recoverable.

 

[Kelso]

1 hour ago, D_Harris_05 said:

Do you have Time Machine set up? Or maybe iCloud Drive? especially if those files were in your Desktop or Documents folders. If so, you might be able to recover them without needing any recovery software.

If not… then your only option now is third-party recovery tools, there’s no real way to undelete files on Mac once they’re out of the Trash.

 

No Time Machine, never set it up. And I do use iCloud on my iPhone and iPad, but I’ve always kept it off on my Mac. Didn’t really want anything syncing or uploading from here. The files were in the Documents folder… kinda wish I’d enabled iCloud Drive now. 😬

[Kelso]

17 minutes ago, tadoka said:

Where exactly were the files stored? If it was your system drive, then yeah… bad news. That’s an SSD (M1 Macs use them) and when you delete something, macOS sends a TRIM command almost right away. That wipes the actual data blocks pretty fast, so chances of recovery are close to 0.
Now, if the files were on an external drive, it’s a different story. Even if it’s an SSD, you’ve got better odds, especially if it was connected via USB Type-A or Type-C through a hub. In setups like that, macOS usually won’t send TRIM commands to the external SSD at all. So the deleted data might still physically be there and recoverable.

 

Files were on my system drive. So does that mean I should just let it go? Or is there still a chance with software?

[UrbanExplorer7]

Bro, nobody can say for sure if the files are still there or not. SSD or not you won’t know until you actually try. That’s why I said go for it: install recovery software on an external drive and scan your system. It’s literally the only way to find out. Worst case it finds nothing.

[TechieGuru99]

Pretty much what @UrbanExplorer7 already said, since you don’t have backups, Mac data recovery software is the only way to even try getting those files back.
Disk Drill’s a solid pick, but there are others worth trying too, like EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard or PhotoRec. 
EaseUS is pretty similar to Disk Drill. You just click a few buttons and let it do its thing, super straightforward. But just like Disk Drill, it’s not free. You’ll need to buy a license to actually recover the files. 
That said, at least you can scan and preview as much as you want. That’s useful to figure out if the files are even still there before spending money. Disk Drill in particular has really clear previews and even shows recovery chances next to each file, like “high”, “low” soyou’ll know what’s likely to come back clean.
PhotoRec is a different beast. It’s free (open-source) but it runs in Terminal and doesn’t have a proper interface or previews. It actually comes bundled with TestDisk, and you’ll probably need to read the manual before diving in.
You’ve got a small window here. I’d say act fast and give those tools a shot.

 

[UrbanExplorer7]

Also just remembered, worth checking if your Mac has any APFS snapshots lying around. Open Disk Utility - View - Show APFS Snapshots (on your internal drive). Maybe a longshot, but it saved me once.

[PixelDreamer5]

1 minute ago, UrbanExplorer7 said:

Also just remembered, worth checking if your Mac has any APFS snapshots lying around. Open Disk Utility - View - Show APFS Snapshots (on your internal drive). Maybe a longshot, but it saved me once.

Don’t you need Time Machine running for those snapshots to even exist though? @Kelso said Time Machine’s not active, so I kinda doubt there’d be anything there… 

[D_Harris_05]

36 minutes ago, PixelDreamer5 said:

Don’t you need Time Machine running for those snapshots to even exist though? @Kelso said Time Machine’s not active, so I kinda doubt there’d be anything there… 

Both APFS snapshots and Time Machine are backup-related, and both let you roll back after something goes wrong, but they’re not the same thing:

• APFS snapshots are point-in-time images of your APFS file system. Time Machine CAN use them (especially for local backups), but snapshots also get created independently, like automatically before system updates, or manually if you script them. Snapshots only exist on APFS-formatted drives and they stay local. So if your system doesn’t have enough free space, older ones get deleted to make room.
• Time Machine is different, it’s continuous, runs on a schedule, and backs up all supported drives, not just APFS. It stores those backups on an external volume, and it’s meant to be a full recovery solution.  If you want a reliable way to restore deleted files on Mac, Time Machine is a proper long-term option.

TL;DR: 
APFS snapshots are not a replacement for a real Time Machine backup.

[tadoka]

You could try Terminal to recover deleted files on macos. Sometimes they still linger in hidden directories like .Trash or system-level folders.Open Terminal and try these:

 

cd ~/.Trash
ls -la

 

If your files are there, you can move them out using “mv filename ~/Desktop”

 

[UrbanExplorer7]

@tadokaThe trash has already been emptied, and those files are gone from the file system. Terminal won’t magically bring them back.

 

[Kelso]

Quick question, can I just use a regular USB stick to install the recovery app? I’ve got a 64GB one sitting around. Or do I need an actaul external hard drive for this to work?

Edited June 17, 2025 by Kelso

[D_Harris_05]

23 minutes ago, Kelso said:

Quick question, can I just use a regular USB stick to install the recovery app? I’ve got a 64GB one sitting around. Or do I need an actaul external hard drive for this to work?

Yeah, a USB stick is totally fine, you don’t need a full external hard drive just to run the recovery software.
Just one thing: don’t recover the files back to your main drive. Use that same USB stick (if there’s enough space) or another external drive to save the recovered files. Recovering to the same disk you’re scanning can overwrite the files your trying to get back.
Also, if you haven’t doen it yet, try to save the recovery app installer to your USB drive too (you can change the default download location in your browser settings). Same reason.

 

[Kelso]

Sorry if this is a dumb question agaiin, but I’ve never installed any apps on a USB drive before… is there something extra I need to do to make it work?

Edited June 17, 2025 by Kelso

[D_Harris_05]

39 minutes ago, Kelso said:

Sorry if this is a dumb question agaiin, but I’ve never installed any apps on a USB drive before… is there something extra I need to do to make it work?

macOS apps are basically packages that contain everything they need to run. So in most cases, you can just drag & drop the app wherever you want and it’ll run just fine.
You might be asked to give the app 'Full Disk Access (that’s totally normal for recovery tools, since they need access to scan your drive).
Also, some older Mac file recovery apps don’t play nice with M1 Macs, but the ones mentioned above should work  on Apple Silicon.

 

[Kelso]

Thanks! I promise I’m not as stupid as I probably sound 😅
Appreciate all the help. Will report back in a minute.

[Kelso]

Alright, I’m back.
Spent way too long trying to figure out how to save the installer to my USB and run it from there.
I thought just having the installer file on the USB would somehow do the rest on its own 😅
In the end, I literally just dragged the app icon to the USB drive instead of the Applications folder. You did say drag and drop, obvious now, but somehow I got confused there for a sec.

 

I ended up going with Disk Drill, read a bunch of reviews and it seemed solid. Once I got it running, the scan was super easy. It actually found almost all of my files, and even showed the original folders they were in, which was great.
The recovery chances were listed as High for most of the files, and the previews worked for alll documents and images I was most worrid about.
So I decided to just upgrade to the PRO version. Didn’t want to take any risks. Figured it’s better to bite the bullet and pay now, those files are still worth to way more to me than the license.
Might be time to finally set up Time Machine 😅

 

Once again, thanks everyone for the advice and guidance, wouldn’t have made it through this on my own. Appreciate all of you!

 

[Roman Demian]

Glad to see a happy ending here, nicely done! And yes, definitely a good idea to set up Time Machine now.

To get started, I recommend checking out this guide on Time Machine backups over on our blog. It walks you through everything from setup to restoring files.

And for anyone else who found this thread while trying to restore deleted files on Mac:
We’ve also put together a dedicated guide that covers all kinds of recovery situations, whether you permanently deleted something, got hit with a virus, or anything in between. It’s worth a read whether you’re completely new to data recovery or have some experience already.
Thanks again to everyone who contributed!