Accidentally deleted an important file? Lost something important when your computer crashed? No problem! Recuva recovers files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. And it's free!
Full Features Description
Undelete files on your computer
We've all deleted files by mistake, or without realizing we'd want them at some future point. Photographs, documents, music files, even emails - we've all had regrets. With Recuva, you can get them back quickly, safely, and easily. This compact Windows program does the work for you, scanning your drives for the files you need, then recovering them in a flash.
Recuva works on any rewriteable media you have. Whether you need to recover priceless photographs from your digital camera's memory card, files you backed up to an external hard drive, or the documents you carry around every day on your USB key, Recuva's got you covered. For prosumer and pro photographers, Recuva supports the Nikon RAW and Canon RAW (.CRW) formats.
If you listen to music on an iPod, Recuva can recover files directly from the iPod's drive. Even though you can't access files on your iPod directly, Recuva can. You don't have to worry about losing music from iTunes or your iPod any more.
Recovery from damaged or formatted disks
The dreaded hard drive crash. The file you forgot to backup before you reformatted a drive. The camera memory card with your holiday snaps that no longer works. Recuva can handle them too.
Windows (and other operating systems) uses a hidden index on hard drives, USB drives, and memory cards. Instead of having to search through the entire drive for a file you request, all it has to do is look it up in the index -- a much faster process.
Unfortunately, if the index is damaged, Windows can no longer find your files, even if the files themselves haven't been corrupted. That's where Recuva comes in.
Unlike Windows, Recuva scans all parts of a drive, looking for the bits that make up your files. If a drive's index has been damaged, chances are other parts of the drive may have been damaged too. Recuva will show you a list of files it has found on the drive, and give you an estimate of the likelihood of success of recovering them.
Similarly, when you format a drive (especially if you use the Quick Format option), Windows erases the hidden index but does not overwrite the existing files until you start saving new data to it. Recuva can still scan the drive's contents to find your files.
Recover deleted emails
If you're using a desktop program like Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, or Mozilla Thunderbird, you know that deleting emails from within the email program sends them to the program's internal trash or Recycle Bin. If you empty the trash or Recycle Bin, that's it -- the email's been deleted and there's no way to get it back.
The email program doesn't delete the email or emails to the Windows Recycle Bin, but rather empties its own internal trash or Recycle Bin. Fortunately, Recuva has the solution to this problem.
Email programs like Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, or Mozilla Thunderbird don't store emails individually. Rather, they store each folder as a database file. For example, there might be a folder for the Inbox, another for Sent Mail, another for Drafts, one for the Trash and another for emails you've saved.
When you empty the email program's Trash, the email program empties that database file. Instead of restoring the database file, Recuva goes one step further and recovers emails individually.
When you recover emails with Recuva, they appear in a compressed .ZIP file (for example, Outlook Express.zip). You can use any standard ZIP file reader (including one built in to Windows) to open the .ZIP file up and see the emails inside.
Each email is stored in a standard .EML format, which means that you can import it to any email program -- not just the one it was sent or received from.
With Recuva, you never have to worry about losing that important email, even if the email program thinks it's finished with it forever.
Recover deleted iPod music
Deleted a track from your iPod or MP3 player? No problem, Recuva will get this back for you along with any additional info.
Restore unsaved Word documents
Did Microsoft Word crash or did you forget to save that important Word document. No problem with Recuva! As it can intelligently rebuild Word documents from their temporary files.
Quick-Start Wizard
For beginning and intermediate users, Recuva has a quick-start Wizard that guides you through the process of recovering your files. Let Recuva know what kind of files you're looking to recover, where they were located, and the program does the rest.
Deep Scan
Recuva comes with many settings that you can use to tweak it to work just the way you want. Don't get us wrong -- it works wonderfully in its default installation. But sometimes you may want to give it a nudge in a particular direction.
Recuva's dual scan levels is a great example of this. When you're searching for a deleted or lost file, you may have all the time in the world. Or, you may have your boss, teacher, or family member breathing down your neck, asking you again and again what's happened to that file, report, or recipe.
Recuva gives you the best of both worlds: the default quick scan, or a Deep Scan for more results.
Recuva's default scan will run through a large hard drive for deleted files in seconds. If you're looking for a file you recently deleted, or a file that's not on a damaged or corrupted drive, you should try the default scan first. It's fast and will find your file 90% of the time. If time is critical, this is the choice for you.
On the other hand, not every deleted or damaged file is easy to find. Some of them take a bit more digging. Recuva's Deep Scan option helps you find even more files buried on your hard drive or removable drives. It takes longer but it's worth it.
How much longer? It depends on the size of your drive. You may want to get a coffee or tea and do something else while you're waiting. The upside is that Recuva's Deep Scan will dig through the bits and bytes of your drive and find absolutely everything that can be recovered.
No matter what size of hard drive or media you're using, Recuva gets to work fast so you can find what you're looking for sooner.
Securely delete files you want to erase forever
If you can recover your files with Recuva, then a hacker can too. Anyone with access to your drives can run Recuva or a similar program to retrieve old files that may contain financial records, passwords, confidential documents, or other information you simply want to keep private.
Although our program is called Recuva (for "recover"), we understand the potential for abuse that recovery software has. That's why we've built in a way to erase traces of your files. It's an added safeguard that only Recuva has.
Here's an example of how Recuva can protect your privacy:
After completing your budget for 2009, you delete the old budget file and start a new one for 2010. Most likely, the 2009 budget file will remain recoverable on your Windows PC for a good while, especially with a strong recovery program.
To make sure the 2009 budget is gone for good, run Recuva and search for documents on that drive. When Recuva finds the 2009BUDGET.xls file, right-click it and select Secure Overwrite.
Recuva overwrites the portion of the hard drive where the ghost of 2009BUDGET.xls lives repeatedly until no recovery software (Recuva included) can ever get the file back.
If you're looking for more advanced privacy and cleaning features, you'll want to check out our acclaimed CCleaner software. You can use CCleaner to erase cookies, passwords, browsing histories, names of recently-used documents and more.
Portable version
Recuva works wonders whether you're on a desktop PC, a notebook, or any computer running Windows. You can download it from any browser with an Internet connection.
But what if you don't have an Internet connection available? Or what if you're going over to Great-Aunt Sally to help her recover digital photos of her dear cat? Or, what if you need to recover files from a work PC that doesn't allow you to install software?
Recuva comes in a portable version with no installer required just for these occasions. It's small enough to fit on a USB drive, so you can take it (and the whole Piriform suite - CCleaner for system cleaning and Defraggler for disk defragmentation) with you wherever you go.
With the regular version of Recuva, you download a .EXE file and double-click it to launch the program installer. For the portable version, simply go to /recuva/download/portable and download the .ZIP file.
A .ZIP file contains one or more files compressed to save space. You will need a utility to unzip the .ZIP file. One is built in to Windows.
Unzip the contents of the .ZIP file into a new folder on your USB drive named "Recuva." When you need to launch the program, double-click the Recuva.exe file. Or, if you are running 64-bit Windows, double-click the Recuva64.exe file.
Since portable Recuva lives entirely on the USB drive, it will leave no traces of use on your PC. With no installation required and no hard drive space, Recuva is your ideal portable Swiss Army Knife to recover files -- anywhere, anytime.
Full Windows OS support and many languages
Recuva runs on any modern Windows computer
Not everyone has the latest and greatest computer. These days, it makes more sense to be cost-conscious and keep your PC as long as you can before upgrading.
That's why we've designed all of our software, including Recuva, to work on as many versions of Windows as possible.
Simply put, if you use Windows 2000 or later, Recuva will work for you.
Here's a complete list of operating systems Recuva currently supports:
Windows 7 (Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, 64-bit)*
Windows 2008 Server (all versions)
Windows Vista (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, 64-bit)
Windows XP (Home, Professional, Tablet Edition, Media Centre Edition, 64-bit)
Windows 2003 Server
Windows 2000
If you're running a 64-bit Windows operating system, Recuva will automatically install a native 64-bit version that's faster and more compatible if you're running a 64-bit version of Windows.
* For Windows 7 users, Recuva also supports the very latest exFAT file system format from Microsoft.
What if I'm not running Windows?
Recuva only supports Windows right now, but if your missing data is on a USB drive, removable drive, or memory card, you can attach the media to a Windows PC and run Recuva to get back your files.
Recuva is international
We speak English as a first language, but many of our users don't. To support our worldwide community of satisfied Recuva users, we're pleased to offer native language support for over 30 languages, including:
English, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Bosanski, Bulgarian, Catala, Cesky, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Dansk, Deutsch, Eesti keel, Espanol, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hrvatski, Italiano, Japanese, Lietuviu, Magyar, Nederlands, Norwegian, Polski, Portugues Brasiliero, Romana, Russian, Serbian Cyrillic, Slovensky, Suomi, Svenska, Turkce, Ukrainian, Vietnamese.
Recuva will help you no matter where you are and what language you speak.
