Home > Questions

How can I recover the accidentally deleted APFS Container on Mac?

I accidentally deleted an APFS container on my internal hard drive, and now my Mac won't boot. The command I used was: sudo diskutil apfs deleteContainer disk0s1. Although I immediately aborted the action the moment I realized it, I guess it's already too late. Is there any way to restore the APFS container? Any suggestion is appreciated.

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Jenny Zeng

Jenny Zeng

Answered on Tuesday, August 5, 2025

You can't restore the deleted APFS container, but there is a possibility of retrieving the data stored on it.

Try running iBoysoft Data Recovery in Recovery Mode. If it can't find anything, the data is likely permanently deleted and can't be retrieved.

To make your Mac work again, you need to reformat the internal drive to get the correct drive structure and reinstall macOS. Follow the steps below:

  1. Boot into macOS Recovery Mode.
  2. Click Disk Utility > Continue.
  3. Select View > Show All Devices.
  4. Select the top-level physical drive and click Erase.
  5. Name your drive.
  6. Choose APFS as the format if running macOS High Sierra or later; otherwise, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
  7. Select GUID Partition Map as the scheme.
  8. Click Erase.
  9. Once the erase process is complete, exit Disk Utility.
  10. Click "Reinstall macOS" and follow the on-screen instructions to finish the installation.

People Also Ask

Read More Questions

Read More Advice From iBoysoft's Computer Experts

How to Download and Create macOS Ventura ISO File

Download and Create macOS Ventura ISO File for Virtual Machine

Running macOS Ventura on a Windows PC is not wishful thinking anymore. This article tells you how to download the macOS Ventura ISO file for Virtual Machines like VirtualBox and VMWare in detail.

what is ReiserFS?

ReiserFS Brief Introduction & ext4 VS ReiserFS

A brief introduction to ReiserFS file system, including the main features, the uses and the comparison of ReiserFS, ext4, and ext3.