How to Recover Deleted Files on a Mac (and When You Can't)

You deleted something on your Mac and now you need it back. The good news: macOS has several safety nets, and most people who want to recover deleted files on a Mac find them in one of the first few places below. The less comfortable news: once a file is truly gone from a modern Mac’s internal SSD, it usually stays gone. Work through these in order, fastest first.

Step 1: Check the Trash and use Put Back

Files you delete in Finder go to the Trash first and stay there until you empty it.

1. Click the Trash icon at the end of the Dock.
2. Find your file (use the search field or sort by Date Added).
3. Right-click it and choose Put Back. It returns to the folder it came from.

A few things to know:

• Files deleted from an external drive sit in that drive’s own Trash folder, so they only show up in the Trash while that drive is connected.
• Items removed with Delete Immediately (Option-Command-Delete) skip the Trash entirely.
• If you set Finder to remove items from the Trash after 30 days, older files will already be gone.

Step 2: Undo, if it just happened

If you deleted the file a moment ago and haven’t done much since, go to Finder and choose Edit → Undo Move (or press Command-Z). This works for the most recent Finder actions, not for something you deleted yesterday.

Step 3: Restore from Time Machine

If you back up with Time Machine, this is the most reliable way to recover deleted files on a Mac after the Trash has been emptied.

1. Connect your Time Machine drive (or make sure your network backup is reachable).
2. Open a Finder window showing the folder where the file used to live.
3. Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and choose Browse Time Machine Backups (older macOS versions call it Enter Time Machine).
4. Use the timeline on the right edge to step back to a date when the file existed.
5. Select it and click Restore.

If the Time Machine icon isn’t in the menu bar, turn it on in System Settings → Control Center (or open Time Machine from the Applications folder).

Step 4: Check iCloud Drive’s Recently Deleted

If the file was stored in iCloud Drive, including the Desktop and Documents folders when “Desktop & Documents Folders” syncing is turned on, iCloud keeps deleted files for 30 days.

• Sign in at iCloud.com, open Drive, and look in Recently Deleted.
• Or, at iCloud.com, open your account settings and go to Data Recovery → Restore Files.

Select the files and restore them. They sync back to your Mac.

Step 5: Look inside the app that owned the file

Many Mac apps have their own recycle bin, separate from the Finder Trash:

• Photos: open the Recently Deleted album in the sidebar. Photos and videos stay there for up to 30 days. On recent macOS versions you’ll need your password or Touch ID to open it.
• Notes: check the Recently Deleted folder, which also keeps notes for up to 30 days.
• Mail: deleted messages go to the Trash mailbox until it’s emptied.

For lost videos specifically, see how to recover deleted videos.

The hard truth about Mac SSDs, TRIM and encryption

If none of the above has your file, here’s what you need to know before buying recovery software.

Every Mac sold in recent years stores your data on an SSD, and macOS uses TRIM on Apple’s internal SSDs. When you empty the Trash, macOS tells the SSD those blocks are no longer needed, and the drive erases them in the background as part of its normal housekeeping. On a hard drive, deleted data lingers until something overwrites it. On a trimmed SSD, it is typically wiped soon after deletion.

On top of that, Macs with a T2 chip (2018–2020 Intel models) or Apple silicon (M1 and later) always encrypt their internal storage with keys held by the Mac’s security hardware, whether or not FileVault is turned on. The storage is also soldered to the logic board, so there’s no drive to remove and scan elsewhere.

Put together, that means:

• Deleted files on the internal drive of a modern Mac are usually not recoverable once the Trash has been emptied and TRIM has done its work. Not by software, and not by a lab. Anyone promising otherwise should explain exactly how.
• Recovery software may still find recently deleted files in rare cases, but installing and running it on the same Mac can write over the very space you’re hoping to recover. Read is data recovery software safe? before you try.

We’d rather tell you this now than take your money.

External hard drives are a different story

If the deleted files were on an external spinning hard drive (a typical USB backup or portable drive), the odds are much better. Hard drives don’t use TRIM, so deleted data usually stays on the disk until new data is written over it.

• Stop using the drive immediately. Don’t save, copy or download anything to it.
• Don’t install recovery software onto that drive. Install it on your Mac and scan the external drive as a read-only source.
• Don’t format or “repair” it hoping to make the files reappear.

External SSDs and flash drives fall in between: depending on the drive and how it’s connected, TRIM may or may not reach it. Treat them as time-sensitive and stop writing to them right away. Our general deleted file recovery guide covers the Windows side and the software approach in more detail.

The bottom line

To recover deleted files on a Mac, check the Trash, try Undo, browse Time Machine, look in iCloud Drive’s Recently Deleted, and check each app’s own Recently Deleted folder. If the file was on the internal SSD of a modern Mac and none of those work, it’s usually gone for good. That’s the strongest argument there is for a real backup plan like the 3-2-1 backup rule.

If your files are on an external hard drive, or your Mac has failed and won’t let you reach them at all, our MacBook recovery service can help. It’s one flat $1,200 price for a single device, with free prepaid shipping, and you pay nothing unless the recovery succeeds.