A free EaseUS alternative: recover everything, not 2 GB

What EaseUS charges, and for what

EaseUS sells Data Recovery Wizard for Windows and for Mac as separate products. Based on what we saw in October 2026, the free edition recovers a small allowance (500 MB, with up to 2 GB offered on Windows for sharing the product), and paid plans were roughly $70 for a month, $100 for a year and $150 for a lifetime licence. Higher tiers add more devices and technician use. The current numbers are on EaseUS’s own site, which also runs frequent discounts.

Two practical points before you pay anyone. First, check the refund policy: EaseUS’s terms exclude refunds once the software has done its job, and “found files” in a preview is not the same as files that open correctly. Second, a monthly plan that renews automatically is a cheap way to buy a one-time rescue, but only if you remember to cancel.

Free alternatives with no cap

Whichever you choose, do the same safe things: stop using the drive, save to a different drive, and do not install the recovery tool onto the disk you are rescuing. If the drive is failing physically, image it first; see recover files from a failing hard drive.

Where EaseUS is genuinely stronger

Being fair matters here. EaseUS reconstructs deleted files from file-system records on NTFS, FAT and others, so you often get names and folders back. Carving tools cannot do that, and Retrova can do it only on NTFS, FAT and exFAT. It also offers bootable media, more file signatures, repair for damaged photos and videos, and a signed installer that opens without a warning. If your files were deleted yesterday from a Windows disk and are worth a hundred dollars, these things count.

Where Retrova is different

Retrova starts from the opposite end. It is built for the drive that will not open: it reads APFS, Mac OS Extended (HFS+), NTFS, FAT12/16/32, exFAT, ext2/3/4, XFS and Btrfs directly, on both Mac and Windows, and copies files off read-only with their names and dates. It opens BitLocker, LUKS and FileVault drives when you have the key, and lists deleted files with their names on NTFS, FAT and exFAT. It has no recovery limit, no account and no telemetry; the only time it goes online is when you click Check for updates. After copying, Verify confirms every byte.

What Retrova cannot do

Retrova is young, and there are things it cannot do. If one of these is your situation, use a different tool:

• Undelete with names outside NTFS, FAT and exFAT. Retrova lists deleted files with their names and folders on NTFS, FAT12/16/32 and exFAT only. On APFS, ext and other file systems it falls back to deep scan, so names and folders are lost and fragmented files may come back damaged. On NTFS, compressed or encrypted deleted files, and ones whose details span several records, are not listed.
• Encrypted drives without the key. Retrova opens BitLocker (password or 48-digit recovery key), LUKS 1/2 (passphrase) and FileVault or encrypted APFS volumes (password) only when you have the key. It cannot open BitLocker startup-key (.bek) or TPM-only drives, or the startup disk of a T2 or Apple silicon Mac away from that Mac. Decryption runs at about 100 MB/s.
• RAID and NAS volumes, APFS snapshots, bootable media and phones. Not supported.
• Code signing. Builds are not signed or notarised yet, hence the first-launch warning.
• Fragmented file carving. Deep scan finds contiguous files of 72 types, which is fewer than the 400 to 1,000 types some paid tools claim. Names are lost, and files stored in pieces may come back damaged or not at all.

The first-launch warning

Retrova’s builds are not signed or notarised with a paid Apple or Microsoft certificate yet, so the first time you open it you will see a warning. On a Mac, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down, click Open Anyway and confirm (on macOS 14 or earlier, right-click the app and choose Open). On Windows, when SmartScreen says “Windows protected your PC”, click More info, then Run anyway. You only do this once. The source code is public if you would rather build it yourself or read what it does.

If you want the step-by-step version of using Retrova on a drive that will not mount, start with external drive not mounting on a Mac, or see the wider list of free-tier limits across recovery tools.

How we checked

We compared EaseUS’s published free-tier and pricing details with the other tools’ documentation. We did not test recovery success rates. Retrova behaviour refers to version 1.1.1. Competitor details were checked in October 2026 and are dated in the text. Vendor prices and free limits change often and many run permanent sales, so treat every figure here as approximate and confirm on the vendor’s own page before you buy.

Questions

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