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How to recover a deleted folder from my MacBook?

How do I recover a deleted folder (trash contents emptied) from my MacBook? I see there are many 'data recovery' programs available but does anyone have recommendations?

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Anna Yuan

Anna Yuan

Answered on Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Even though the contents in your MacBook Trash Bin have been emptied, it doesn't mean the deleted folder is gone forever from the hard drive. In fact, it only marks the storage space the deleted folder used to occupy can be used for new data writing. That is to say, you can recover the deleted folder from emptied Trash as long as the data haven't been overwritten. 

Therefore, stop any data writing steps to the Mac hard drive immediately and perform deleted file/folder recovery ASAP! Before you use any data recovery programs to recover it, you can check if you've duplicated the deleted folder in Time Machine or iCloud backup.

If you have backed up your Mac with Time Machine before you emptied the Trash, you can easily retrieve the deleted folder with Time Machine. Or if you used iCloud for backing up, you only need to log into your iCloud account and download the deleted folder directly to your Mac.

However, if unfortunately, you have no backups for your Mac containing the deleted folder you want to retrieve, then data recovery software for emptied Mac Trash could be your last option to retrieve your folder. You should choose professional data recovery software for Mac to recover emptied Mac Trash. Here, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is recommended.

This easy-to-use and intuitive macOS program can scan Mac's internal hard drive and search for any lost/deleted files, then you can preview the scanned results and recover the deleted files or folders you want. iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac app also works on macOS 13/12/11/10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and OS X 10.11 and is compatible with M1 and M2 Macs. It's a really powerful app worth trying.

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