Free data recovery software with no recovery limit
The usual pattern: a free download scans your drive, shows you every file it found, then lets you save 100 MB, or 2 GB, or nothing, until you pay. When your photos are on the line, that’s a hard moment to be sold to.
Retrova recovers any amount from your own drives for free: no trial, no account, no cap. It’s open source (AGPL-3.0), runs completely offline, and opens your drive read-only.
What “free” usually means in data recovery
| Typical free version | What you get |
|---|---|
| Scan and preview only | See your files, save none of them until you buy a licence. |
| Small cap | Save around 100 MB to 2 GB, roughly a few dozen photos, then pay. |
| Subscription | Monthly or yearly plans for a job you usually need once. |
| Retrova | Everything, free. No cap, no account, no trial. |
What to look for in any recovery tool
- Read-only access. The tool should never write to the drive it’s rescuing.
- Imaging. For a failing drive you want a full image first, made by reading every block once and working around the bad spots.
- Verification. A copy you can’t check is a copy you can’t trust. Look for a byte-for-byte compare and checksums.
- Offline and private. Your files shouldn’t need an internet connection or an account.
- Source you can inspect. For a tool you trust with your only copy, being able to see the code matters.
What Retrova gives you, free
- Copy files off drives that won’t open: APFS, NTFS, FAT/exFAT, ext2/3/4, XFS and Btrfs.
- Deep scan for deleted files, recognising 47 file types: photos including RAW, video, audio, documents and archives.
- Whole-drive images of failing disks, resumable and tolerant of bad sectors.
- Byte-for-byte verification with one-click repair, SHA-256 manifests and CSV reports.
- Space map, duplicate finder, cleanup and local text search, for after the rescue.
Other good free options
PhotoRec and TestDisk are long-standing open-source tools that run from the command line. If you’re comfortable in a terminal they’re excellent, and Retrova is happy to share the shelf with them. Retrova’s aim is the same honesty with a friendly window, plus verification built in.
So how does Retrova pay for itself?
A paid Technician licence is coming for repair shops and IT teams who recover drives for paying clients. And if Retrova saved your files, you can support it. The free version will never lose features to make room for either.
Get Retrova
Free and open source for macOS 11+ and Windows 10/11. No account, no recovery limit, and it never writes to the drive you’re rescuing.
Download RetrovaFree for Mac and WindowsQuestions
What’s the catch?
There isn’t one for personal use. Retrova is open source under the AGPL-3.0, makes no internet connections and has no account system to sell you anything through.
Is open-source recovery software safe?
Being open source means anyone can read exactly what it does to your drive. Retrova opens source drives read-only and moves anything it removes to the Trash or Recycle Bin, never deleting permanently.
Does it work on Windows?
Yes, on Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), as an installer or a portable zip you can run from a USB stick.