Recoverit is a powerful data recovery software developed by Wondershare (https://recoverit.wondershare.com/data-recovery-win.html). It is designed to recover lost, deleted, formatted, or otherwise inaccessible photos, videos, documents, and other files from Windows PCs, external devices, recycle bin, etc. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of Recoverit’s capabilities, including what features are available in the free vs paid versions, limits on data recovery, ease of use, customer support, security, and alternatives. This will help readers understand if Recoverit data recovery is truly free and if it’s the right solution for their data loss situation.
Overview of Recoverit
Recoverit is data recovery software developed by Wondershare Technology, a software company founded in 2003 that makes a variety of digital media tools for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android devices. Recoverit allows users to recover deleted files from computers, external devices, and mobile devices.
Recoverit supports recovery for over 1000 file formats including documents, photos, videos, audio files, archives, and more. It can recover data lost due to accidental deletion, hard drive failure, virus attack, system crash, partition loss, and other data loss scenarios. The software scans storage devices to find recoverable data and has advanced deep scan technology to maximize the chance of full data recovery.
Recoverit is available in both a free version with limited functionality and a paid version with full capabilities. The free version lets users preview found files and recover a limited amount each month. The paid version has no recovery limits and additional features like advanced video recovery.
Recoverit runs on Windows and Mac computers. It has an intuitive interface and wizard-based process to guide users through each step of recovering lost files. Customer support is available via email, live chat, and telephone. Recoverit aims to make data recovery accessible for both personal and business users.
Free Version Capabilities
The free version of Recoverit allows users to recover data from various sources including hard drives, external storage devices, SD cards, USB drives, and more (Source). With Recoverit Free, users can recover unlimited data with no caps on how many files can be restored (Source).
Some key features and capabilities of the Recoverit Free version include:
- Recovers lost or deleted files from hard drives, SSDs, USB drives, SD cards, etc.
- Supports recovery of all file types including photos, videos, documents, archives, and more
- Scans storage devices quickly to find lost and deleted files
- Has an intuitive interface that makes data recovery easy for anyone
- Allows previewing files before recovering to ensure they are the right ones
- Recovers data due to accidental deletion, system crash, virus attack, disk formatting, and more
- 100% secure data recovery with no overwriting of files during the process
Overall, Recoverit Free provides robust data recovery capabilities without any limits on how much data users can restore. It makes recovering lost and deleted files easy and accessible for anyone.
Paid Version Capabilities
The paid version of Recoverit unlocks additional capabilities beyond what is available in the free version. Some key features only available in paid versions include:
Advanced Video Recovery – The paid version can recover videos from DSLR cameras, drones, dashcams, camcorders, and other devices. It supports a wide range of video formats including MP4, MOV, MKV, and more. This capability is not available in the free version.
System Crash Recovery – The paid version can recover data from a crashed computer or one that won’t boot. This feature lets you create a bootable recovery drive to scan and extract data from a crashed system. The free version does not offer system crash recovery.
External Devices Recovery – Paid Recoverit can recover data from external devices like USB drives, SD cards, digital cameras, and more. The free version is limited to recovering data from a computer’s hard drive.
Advanced Search – Paid versions allow searching by file name, type, date modified, and content. This helps quickly locate specific files to recover. The free version only allows basic searching.
Faster Scanning – Paid Recoverit offers faster scanning speeds to quickly analyze drives and preview found files. Scans in the free version are slower.
Larger File Recovery – Paid versions support recovering larger files up to 2GB in size. The free version limits file recovery size to 100MB.
So in summary, upgrading to a paid Recoverit subscription unlocks more data sources, faster scans, larger file recovery, and advanced capabilities not available in the free version.
Data Recovery Limits
The free version of Recoverit has some limits on the amount and types of data that can be recovered compared to the paid versions.
The free version allows recovering up to 100MB of data. This is suitable for recovering smaller files like documents, photos, or other media. However, for larger amounts of data or entire drives, the 100MB limit may not be enough.
The paid versions of Recoverit do not have a limit on the amount of data recovered. Both the Essential and Standard versions allow unlimited data recovery.[Wondershare] Upgrade to Recoverit Essential, Standard …
In addition to amount limits, the free version is also limited in the types of files it can recover compared to the paid versions. The free version focuses on common file types like photos, videos, documents, and more. However, the paid versions support recovery of additional file types.
Overall, the free version of Recoverit allows basic data recovery capabilities but has limits. For unlimited data recovery and support for more file types, the paid versions are recommended.
Ease of Use
Both the free and paid versions of Recoverit are known for being easy to use, even for beginners. According to TechRadar, Recoverit has an intuitive interface that makes the data recovery process straightforward. Users can follow simple on-screen instructions to scan for and restore their lost files.
The main difference in usability between the free and paid versions is the level of control and customization available. The free version runs an automatic quick scan to find recently deleted files. The paid version includes additional scan modes like the All-Around Recovery scan and Deep Scan which dig deeper and take more time, but can find older deleted files. Paid users can also pause, restart or customize scans and select specific file types or folders to target.
Overall, both free and paid Recoverit offer an easy data recovery experience. But the paid version provides more advanced control over the scanning and recovery process for power users.
Customer Support
Recoverit offers free customer support via email for all users, including those on the free version. Users can submit a support ticket through the website and typically receive a response within 24 hours during weekdays according to Wondershare (Wondershare).
For paid users, Recoverit also provides priority 24/7 live chat and remote assistance. Paid users can get instant answers to questions through live chat with a support agent. The support team can also remotely access the user’s computer to diagnose issues, which can help resolve problems faster than email support alone (TechRadar). Additionally, paid users get faster first response times for support tickets compared to free users.
So in summary, all Recoverit users get free email support, but paid users get the advantage of instant live chat and remote assistance from the Recoverit support team which can improve the data recovery experience.
Security and Privacy
When evaluating any data recovery software, security and privacy are important considerations. According to Wondershare’s website, Recoverit data recovery is 100% safe to use (source). The software performs its primary function of recovering lost files without interfering with other programs or systems. While it’s difficult to fully verify the security of closed-source software like Recoverit, analysis by independent researchers has not revealed significant privacy risks (source).
Some users have expressed concerns over the data collected by Recoverit, such as system information and analytics. However, this appears comparable to other legitimate software. There is no evidence that Recoverit collects or transmits personal user data without consent. Overall, independent reviews have not identified major security flaws or malicious behavior (source).
Users should still practice caution when recovering sensitive files or connecting external drives to their system. But major security experts have not flagged Recoverit as a privacy risk. While no software is 100% secure, Recoverit data recovery appears reasonably trustworthy for most consumer use cases.
Alternatives to Recoverit
While Recoverit is a popular data recovery software, there are several alternatives worth considering:
Disk Drill (https://www.handyrecovery.com/recoverit-alternatives/) is an excellent commercial alternative to Recoverit. It offers robust recovery capabilities for both Windows and Mac, recovering from hard drives, external drives, cameras, and more. Disk Drill claims to recover over 200 file formats with a high recovery success rate.
Recuva (Freeware) (https://recoverit-free.en.softonic.com/windows/alternatives) is a popular free alternative, supporting Windows only. While the free version lacks some advanced features, it can recover files from hard drives, memory cards, and other sources. Recuva offers a simple interface and deep scan capabilities.
Overall, top alternatives like Disk Drill and Recuva provide robust data recovery capabilities that can match or exceed Recoverit in some areas. They are worth evaluating based on your specific needs and budget.
Conclusion
In summary, the key differences between the free and paid versions of Recoverit are:
- The free version allows you to recover up to 100 MB of data, while the paid version has unlimited data recovery.
- The free version only works on limited file types like photos, videos, documents and emails. The paid version can recover over 1000 file formats.
- The free version has limited technical support, while the paid plans offer lifetime support and live chat.
- The paid version includes advanced features like bootable media tool, virus protection and SSD data recovery.
Overall, the free version of Recoverit provides basic data recovery capabilities for limited file types and data amounts. It’s a good option for recovering recently deleted files or getting a feel for the software. However, for unlimited, reliable data recovery across all file types, the paid version is highly recommended and worth the investment.