How to Recover Files from an SD Card on Mac (2024 Guide)

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SD cards are mercilessly manhandled on mobile devices like smartphones and cameras, and their portability means they also read and write data more often than other storage media. This makes them highly susceptible to both physical and logical damage, further resulting in data loss. It also makes human error more likely (have you ever “accidentally” formatted your SD card?)

We know losing thousands of photographs and raw footage totally sucks. This article provides step-by-step instructions (and more critical info) on how to recover deleted files from an SD card on your Mac. Read on.

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There are a lot of factors that go into the data recovery process that can impact its outcome, especially with ultra-portable storage devices like SD cards. While you can’t control them all, there are some things you can do to at least maximize your chances of success:

On your Mac computer, there is a special folder called Trash. When you delete a file, the file is first moved to this folder before it is deleted for good. Trash guarantees 100% recovery success rate, and you don’t need any special software to use it.

However, this folder is primarily for local files – so this method only works if your SD card was connected during deletion. What most people don’t know is that Mac creates a hidden Trash folder for external storage devices. We’ll explore this more in the next section.

To Recover Deleted Files from Trash:

To Recover Deleted Files From SD Card’s Trash Folder:

What if you can’t find the files deleted from your SD card in Trash? In that case, you should use SD card recovery software for Mac, which is where the next method comes in.

If the data on your SD card is gone due to accidental deletion, formatting, or corruption… Then the only way to recover as much of it as possible is by using data recovery software. The same rings true for CF cards, microSD cards, and other memory cards.

We’ll demonstrate this process using Disk Drill, a data recovery software we often recommend on our blog because of its high recovery rate and user-friendly GUI (Graphical User Interface).

It’s a great app for recovering photos, because you can preview your files to make sure you’re restoring the right data (which will save a lot of time). For the instructions, we’ll recover a RAW Canon image using Disk Drill so we can better showcase this feature.

If you’re willing to learn how to use it, the open-source data recovery tool, PhotoRec, is an excellent choice for restoring deleted files from an SD card.

It’s not as powerful nor as beginner-friendly as Disk Drill and other paid recovery software, but PhotoRec has an excellent signature scanner that recognizes a lot of file types – including documents, videos, and even RAW photos.

PhotoRec’s Terminal-like interface is a bit tricky, but as long as you follow the guide we prepared below, you’ll get through the process quite easily.

Once PhotoRec completes the recovery process, your files will be saved in a folder named “recup_dir” or “recup_dir.1~” in your selected destination.

If you enabled Time Machine on your Mac before your SD card files were deleted, it’s possible that those files got included in the backup!

In that case, you can use Time Machine to travel through your SD card’s timeline and grab those files from the directory’s history.

Step 1. Connect your SD card to your Mac using a USB card reader.

Step 2. On the Apple Menu Bar, click the Time Machine button > Browse Time Machine Backups…

Step 3. Navigate to your SD card’s directory. Then, use the arrows on the right of the window to move backward in that directory’s timeline. Once you go far enough, the deleted files should appear (if they were successfully backed up) – select them and click Restore.

Do you have any cloud storage services enabled on your Mac? Certain cloud storage services have features that automate the file-uploading process for you in different circumstances. Depending on how it’s set up, you may have copies of your SD card files that were automatically saved to the cloud.

For example, Dropbox has a feature called Camera uploads. When enabled, Dropbox will automatically back up photos and videos from external storage devices as soon as they connect to your Mac.

Even if the original copies of your photos get deleted from your SD card or even from your local Mac disk, you can easily download their backup copies from Dropbox’s (or another service’s) website.

Step 1. Open any browser and log in to Dropbox.com.

Step 2. Navigate to the Camera Uploads folder. Then, select the files you want to save and click the Download button.

If your SD card files keep going missing without human intervention (e.g. accidental deletion or formatting), there’s a good chance that it got corrupted. This might have been caused by a number of varying issues, like virus infections, read/write interruptions, etc.

If this is the case for you, recovery AND repair might still be possible if you act quickly. Check out our guide on how to recover and fix a corrupted SD card on a Mac.

Aside from Disk Drill and TestDisk/PhotoRec (two of our favorite data tools), we tested dozens of software and came up with the best tools for SD card data recovery on a Mac:

To learn more about these tools (and the other features of Disk Drill and TestDisk/PhotoRec, read the full article).

If you want to clear an SD card, meaning that you want to format it. Then we can follow the steps below.

For the most part, you will format an SD card the same way no matter which Mac you’re using it on.

All of the data will then be removed from your SD card and it will be set up as new again.