If your files or images are badly corrupted or the SD card damaged, it’s usually impossible to restore data from SD cards. We have not featured these types of vendors here as they are taking open source software released under the GNU license and then repackaging it as their own. There are some unscrupulous developers out there that claim to offer paid Mac SD recovery software but in actual fact just wrap their own interface around free open source recovery software.Most free SD recovery software can usually only be used via the command line in Terminal though and so they aren’t user-friendly to those without technical knowledge although PhotoRec has recently introduced a simple graphical user interface. However, there are a few open source tools which can recover data from SD cards which we’ve included here.

The most they will allow for free is recovery of a few files. SD card data recovery is a complex process and although most SD recovery software have free trials although the trials usually only let you see or preview which files can be recovered if any. Before you choose which SD recovery software to use, there’s a few useful things to know about to avoid disappointment and improve your chances of recovering lost data.

Free memory card recovery software