I accidentally deleted important files from an HFS-formatted drive and need advice on HFS file recovery before I make things worse. If you’ve recovered deleted files from an HFS or Mac drive, what software or steps actually worked?
If you care about the files, don’t treat the drive like something you’re trying to “fix” first. Treat it like something you need to copy data off of. That means no formatting, no repeated First Aid runs, no copying anything new onto it, and don’t install recovery software on that same HFS drive.
Deleted files on HFS/HFS+ often aren’t wiped right away. The file system usually just marks that space as reusable. So recovery can still work after an accidental delete, emptied Trash, and sometimes even after a quick format, as long as the old data hasn’t been overwritten. External drives can be a little more forgiving here because macOS usually isn’t writing system stuff to them constantly like it does with an internal disk.
Before running a scan, I’d check the drive’s condition:
- See if it shows up in Disk Utility with the correct size.
- Try a different cable, USB port, or another Mac if it keeps dropping out.
- Check SMART status if the enclosure exposes it.
- If it freezes, disconnects, throws read errors, or SMART looks bad, make a disk image first and scan the image instead of hammering the actual drive.
For normal HFS file recovery, Disk Drill is usually the first tool I’d try. It supports HFS and HFS+, works with Mac internal and external drives, and can scan a disk even if Finder won’t mount the volume, assuming the device still appears with the right capacity. The preview feature is useful too, since you can check whether the files actually open before committing to recovery.
The basic workflow would be:
- Install Disk Drill on your Mac, not on the drive you’re recovering from.
- Connect the old external drive.
- In Disk Drill, choose the full physical disk if possible, not just the HFS volume.
- Click Search for Lost Data and run Universal Scan.
- Let it finish, then go to Review Found Items.
- Look through Deleted or Lost and Reconstructed.
- Preview the important files first, especially photos, videos, and documents.
- Select what you need and click Recover.
- Save the recovered files to a different healthy drive.
Do not recover files back onto the same HFS disk. That can overwrite other deleted data that hasn’t been recovered yet.
If the drive seems flaky, use Disk Drill’s disk image feature before doing the main scan:
Make the image on another drive with enough free space, then scan that image inside Disk Drill. It won’t repair the original disk, but it reduces how much you’re stressing failing hardware.
Also check the simple stuff first. Look in the Trash, because external Mac drives can have their own hidden Trash folders. If you have a Time Machine backup from before the files disappeared, use that before recovery software. TestDisk is another option if the whole HFS partition was deleted or lost, but it’s a text-based tool and easier to mess up. I’d think of it more as a partition recovery tool than a simple “bring back my deleted folder” app.
A quick format doesn’t always mean the files are gone. Often the file-system records get replaced while a lot of the actual file content is still sitting on the disk. The big question is how much the drive was used afterward. If the original HFS records are damaged or gone, you may recover files without their original names or folder structure, especially from the reconstructed results.
One thing to watch out for on Windows: Windows doesn’t understand HFS+ by default, so it may show the drive as RAW and ask to format it. Don’t do that. Cancel the prompt. Some Windows recovery tools can still scan the disk, but a Mac-based scan is more likely to preserve the original folder structure.
I’d stop DIY recovery if the drive:
- clicks, grinds, buzzes, or keeps spinning up over and over
- disappears from Disk Utility
- disconnects every few seconds
- makes the Mac freeze
- scans painfully slowly because of constant read errors
- contains irreplaceable data and this is the only readable copy left
Those are more like physical failure symptoms, not just HFS corruption or deleted files. Recovery software can’t fix damaged heads, bad electronics, firmware problems, or badly degraded platters/media. Repeated scans can make that worse, so at that point a recovery lab is the safer route.
For a healthy old HFS external drive where files were just deleted, I’d stop using it, check Trash and Time Machine, scan with Disk Drill, preview the results, and recover everything to another disk. If it’s unstable, image it first. If it’s clicking or disappearing, stop powering it on and consider a lab.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ1aQPFxTag
A deleted folder and a formatted HFS partition are not the same recovery job. If you need original filenames and folders, don’t judge the scan only by “found file count,” because raw results can look impressive while being mostly nameless fragments. Disk Drill or any similar tool should be checked by previewing the exact files you care about before paying or recovering a giant mess.
Whether that HFS volume was on a spinning hard drive or an SSD changes the odds a lot.
If it was a regular external USB hard drive, accidental deletion is often recoverable because the deleted data may still be sitting there until something overwrites it. If it was an SSD, especially an internal Mac SSD or an external SSD where TRIM is active, the situation can be much worse. TRIM can tell the drive to discard deleted blocks, and once that happens recovery tools may only find names, partial metadata, or files full of zeros. That is not the software failing. That is the storage doing what it was designed to do.
So before spending hours scanning, I’d identify the device type:
- old external 2.5’/3.5’ hard drive: decent chance if you stopped using it
- USB flash drive or memory card: mixed chance, depends on controller behavior
- external SSD: maybe, maybe not, depends on TRIM and how it was connected
- internal Mac SSD: usually lower odds after deletion, especially if time has passed
I agree with @mike34 about not being impressed by huge “found files” numbers. Raw carved files can look like a miracle until you realize they are all named file000482.jpg and half of them are thumbnails, cache files, or broken chunks. For HFS/HFS+, the better result is when the tool finds the old catalog records and gives you the original folders and names. That is the difference between a usable recovery and a weekend of sorting junk.
Disk Drill is fine to try for that because it gives you a fairly friendly way to browse found files and preview them. The important caveat is that preview is the test, not the marketing screen and not the count at the end of the scan. If the exact files you need preview correctly, then you probably have something worth recovering. If the app only shows reconstructed results with generic names, it may still save some photos or documents, but you should lower your expectations on folder structure.
I’d be a little less quick to run repairs than people tend to be. Disk Utility First Aid feels harmless, but on a damaged or half-corrupt HFS volume it can modify the file system while trying to make it consistent. That may be useful if your goal is to mount the volume again, but it is not always useful if your goal is to recover deleted files. Same with “fixing” permissions, rebuilding directories, or letting random utilities write changes. Recovery first, repair later.
If the drive mounts, I would not open folders and poke around for long either. Finder can create hidden files and Spotlight can start indexing. Usually it is not massive writing, but when you are trying to preserve deleted data, unnecessary writes are still unnecessary. If macOS asks to use the disk for Time Machine or Photos starts doing something with it, cancel out.
My rough order would be:
- Stop using the drive.
- Figure out whether it is HDD, SSD, flash, or internal storage.
- Make sure you have another disk with enough free space for recovered files.
- If the drive is physically healthy, scan it read-only with a recovery app.
- If it is unstable, clone/image first and scan the copy.
- Preview the important files before paying or recovering a giant pile.
- Save recovered files somewhere else.
For a cheaper route, PhotoRec can sometimes pull back files from HFS disks, but it is ugly for normal users and usually loses filenames and folders. It is more of a last-ditch “I just need the JPEGs or DOCX files” tool. TestDisk is useful when the partition itself is missing, but I would not point a nervous user at it for a simple deleted folder unless they are comfortable reading prompts carefully. It is too easy to turn a recoverable situation into a weirder one.
Another annoyance: if these were Mac app bundles, old project folders, Logic/Final Cut libraries, Photos libraries, or anything that is really a package folder, raw recovery can be messy. Those are not always single files in the way people imagine. Getting the folder structure back matters a lot more there. A recovered Photos library with missing database pieces may not open even if a bunch of image files are still inside it.
For normal documents and photos on an old HFS+ external hard drive, I’d say the odds are often reasonable if the drive was unplugged soon after deletion. For an SSD, I would be much more cautious about expectations. The sooner you scan, the better, but if TRIM already cleared the blocks, no paid app is going to magically reverse that.
So yes, try Disk Drill or another reputable recovery tool, but don’t treat the first pretty results screen as proof. The real question is: can it show your actual files, with sensible names, and do they preview correctly? If yes, recover them to a different disk. If no, try a second tool before paying, because different scanners can read HFS damage differently.
