Retrova Download

Privacy

Short version: Retrova collects nothing. Your files, your drives and what you do with them never leave your computer.

The app

  • No internet connections. Retrova has no telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting, no update checks and no sign-in. It works with the network unplugged.
  • No account. There is nothing to register and no licence server.
  • Links open in your browser. The few links in the app (source code, the website and the ways to support Retrova) open in your own web browser when you click them. Retrova itself still connects to nothing.
  • A private local engine. The Retrova window talks only to Retrova's own engine at 127.0.0.1 on your computer. Each launch creates a new random key, and requests without it are refused, so other programs and websites can't use the engine.
  • Your drives are only read. Drives you recover from are opened read-only. Copies go to the folder you choose and never overwrite an existing file.
  • Nothing is deleted permanently. Duplicates, caches and other items you choose to remove are moved to the Trash or Recycle Bin, where you can restore them.

What Retrova stores on your computer

Retrova keeps a few files in its own app-data folder (~/Library/Application Support/Retrova on a Mac, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Retrova on Windows):

  • The Find Text index: the words recognised in the folders you asked it to index, with their file paths. Remove a folder from Find Text, or delete this folder, to erase it.

Next to your recovered files, in the folder you chose, Retrova also writes:

  • Recovery logs in a _retrova_logs folder, a record of what was copied and anything that couldn't be read.
  • Verification results and SHA-256 manifests in a _recovery-verify folder, so a copy can be re-checked later and files that already passed can be skipped.

Text recognition uses the engine built into macOS (Vision) or Windows (Windows.Media.Ocr), which runs on your computer.

This website

This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics or tracking scripts, and loads no fonts, scripts or images from other servers. The web host may keep standard server logs (such as IP address and the page requested) for security and reliability; they aren't used to identify you.

Contact

Retrova is made by Jishnu Mahanta, an independent developer in Guwahati, India. Questions about privacy are welcome through the contact form on that site.

Last updated 18 October 2026.