Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

tomkelly reviewed v1.48.980 on Aug 22, 2013

recuva rocks

Darrien Gordon reviewed v1.48.980 on Aug 16, 2013

Wonderful utility! It will be very supportive to the people who lost their files. 2 days before I lost some of my pictures from hard drive and I want to get them back. Will your software support me to recover my pictures? I heard about Remo Recover tool also and it is also a perfect tool to recover deleted data.

-Lord- reviewed v1.45.858 on Feb 15, 2013

Nice little utility, but limited in ability.

areef shah reviewed v1.42.544 on Dec 17, 2011

i recover many videos file with recuva but it doesn't work................... can anybody help me the information of error is-"VLC can't recognize the input's format:
The format of 'C:\Documents and Settings\Raman Sharma\My Documents\Downloads\Temp\Girls` Generation(____) _ Gee _ MusicVideo.avi' cannot be detected. Have a look the log for details." this

cricri_pingouin reviewed v1.42.544 on Dec 13, 2011

Just tried it, v1.42. Copied an executable on a drive, deleted it (shift+delete), run Recuva, select *.exe as filter, scan took 10 seconds, found the file I just deleted, highlights it with a green icon (it found really old files as well, but highlighted them red as I'd expect), click on it, recover to my C drive, I'm told the file is recovered successfully, run the exe from the C drive and it works.
So works as advertised, nice easy interface, quick scan, and reliable colouring of the recoverable files.
I can't think of any reason to deduce any points, so it gets a 5.

eek-1 reviewed v1.41.537 on Nov 16, 2011

Pros: Nice UI. Pretty quick scan (except deep scan). I think it works like most other free recovery software.

Cons: First of all, you can't alter and save filter presets. In case for example you're looking for document files but the document file type is not included in the preset, you have to append it in filter box. And then the filtering process can be TERRIBLY SLOW. Moreover, you can't save the list of files found in case you need to resume work later. You have to redo the scan again.

Overall: OK if your hard drive isn't too big.

mrainey reviewed v1.38.504 on Jul 16, 2010

It has worked fine the few times I've used it.

gawd21 reviewed v1.37.488 on Jun 16, 2010

This doesn't work at all, anymore. It shows NOTHING. I just delete some pics and took the card to a Vista 32 bit system, ran the deep scan and nothing shows up!

Freaking junk! I used to love this program!

pjb reviewed v1.37.488 on Apr 15, 2010

I have never had much success with this. Seems to find the file but has issues restoring them.

Protocal reviewed v1.36.479 on Mar 1, 2010

it does what it says ... and it's free!

anomoly reviewed v1.34.460 on Dec 24, 2009

Never really needed it (r-studio never failed me when I did) but any time I have tried to recover files deleted moments before, it never found them. Practically worthless from my experience.

gawd21 reviewed v1.32.444 on Nov 22, 2009

I have been using this for a while, and it has never failed me. However, this version is not working to recover anything on a simple sd card. I don't know why.

W7 64 bit

shakur aboud reviewed v1.27.419 on Jun 9, 2009

It worked great at the first go but when I looked at the file nothing was there. and has failed to recover my pictures for the flash disc.

some guy reviewed v1.26.416 on Apr 21, 2009

best of it's kind these guy create some great programs cc cleaner defraguller good stuff and free.

[deXter] reviewed v1.25.409 on Mar 20, 2009

Probably one of the best freeware undelete tools available. Very simple and easy to use for recovering deleted files.

But for recovering lost files/partitions, I'd recommend TestDisk, and for damaged files/drive, I recommend GetDataBack.

@Zoroaster: The slim version doesn't include the toolbar but still requires one to install the program, while the portable version doesn't require any installation.

coolticker reviewed v1.24.399 on Mar 15, 2009

AVerage quality tool, treeview mode is very limited as it do not show properties of files, you must click each file and see the details tab.

It use too much memory comparing other undelete tools. Tested on a small FAT32 40GB partition with 30.000 files and 10.000 deleted files, during scanning it growed up to 350MB RAM+ 250MB swap. After the scan it shrinked down to 100MB RAM+100MB swap.

Zoroaster reviewed v1.23.389 on Jan 27, 2009

Ain Soph Aur, there is a SLIM version avvailable so why bend for a portable ? Think elsewhere than yo do.
As for Recuva,, the code, excellet.

Ain Soph Aur reviewed v1.23.389 on Jan 26, 2009

because a portable version does not change your system (because no installation), you can use the programm on a usb-stick (also on other pc's) and its smaler...
i absolutely dont see a reason for INSTALLING this software

mmoak reviewed v1.22.384 on Dec 30, 2008

Tight program and have been using it for awhile. They also make CCleaner which is awesomeness.

serhio reviewed v1.22.384 on Dec 30, 2008

there is a choice stupid, stop spreading FUD

Zoroaster reviewed v1.22.384 on Dec 30, 2008

Tightens install with that of Yahoo! Toolbar, and this time no choice (or at least an enigmatic rhetoric). Removed.

some guy reviewed v1.22.384 on Dec 30, 2008

this rocks, very easy to use

Diam0nd reviewed v1.22.384 on Dec 30, 2008

For a freebie this is quite amazing.

mjm01010101 reviewed v1.21.373 on Dec 4, 2008

Just recommended this for a friend and they said it was able to recover everything they needed. Can't beat free!

Diam0nd reviewed v1.21.373 on Nov 30, 2008

Great free recovery utility. One of the best.

Undesired Username: You need to see a doctor.

Andy Dean reviewed v1.21.373 on Nov 29, 2008

I like this app. It does the best job it can for no financial outlay.
File recovery programs are all a hit and miss affair Recuva included but it's well worth trying this one out.

@ pollok2 why post your crap here?

Undesired Username reviewed v1.21.373 on Nov 28, 2008

1. In Russian, Kaspersky is pronounced "kass-PEER-ski", but I doubt most native English speakers pronounce it that way.

2. Recuva is a stupid name. I pronounce it "ree-CUH-vuh" because I don't like playing idiotic phonetic games.

3. The utility is pretty good. That's the main thing.

Skyfrog reviewed v1.20.361 on Oct 22, 2008

Works fine, but as far as the name I agree it's kind of dumb. The post below might be a valid argument too if this company was in some country like Finland, but it's not. The company is based in London. Boldly claiming it's pronounced recover is like saying cat is pronounced corn. If they want people to call it Recover they should spell it that way. Recuva isn't even a word.

Great program just the same, nice to have on a USB key.

DJHasis reviewed v1.20.361 on Oct 22, 2008

Nice software, no problems and does what it is meant to.

Banquo: if you say Recuva shouldn't be pronounced recuver then do you mean that the word is written incorrectly?

What if the word recuva isn't english, then the word should be pronounced like it is in that language.

Like I'm finnish and I'm certain that not all can pronounce my name like it should be. Try to say Nokia like the makers of Nokia say it, are you sure if you'r saying that correctly?

So can we drop the talk about the name?

Banquo reviewed v1.19.350 on Sep 29, 2008

Tried it out and it seems to work well, even though it is absolutely not pronounced Recover (learn the rules of English please!). Sorry, pet peeve. ;-)

Metshrine reviewed v1.18.344 on Aug 28, 2008

This is one of those great free tools to carry on your thumb drive. It allows for quick retrieval of that accidentally removed file or one you forgot you deleted when deleting mass amounts of files. I highly recommend it to any power user with a thumb drive of quick access tools.

belthurgp reviewed v1.18.344 on Aug 28, 2008

Has helped me many times. I like the improvements they have done. Now you can preview the data of each file before recovering...

As far as securely overwriting file goes, I have always used sdelete from sysinternals.

Undesired Username reviewed v1.15.327 on Jun 30, 2008

The recovery functionality worked nicely in my test, but I have to agree with the reviewer who said the secure overwriting feature doesn't work properly. I created a text file, deleted it (while bypassing the Recycle Bin), told Recuva to securely overwrite it, and then was still able to recover the file with the actual text I had placed in it. This isn't too surprising since when you're dealing with deleted files, it's impossible to tell for sure where the unindexed files end. So, Recuva should not pretend to be able to securely overwrite these files.

Rafel reviewed v1.15.327 on Jun 11, 2008

Great program.
@Pihug12:
Choose your version ;) :
http://www.recuva.com/download/builds.aspx

pihug12 reviewed v1.15.327 on Jun 11, 2008

Recuva 1.14 : 800ko
Recuva 1.15 : 2.2Mo

They add (in option) Yahoo! Toolbar. :-(

DatabaseBen reviewed v1.15.327 on Jun 11, 2008

it's a handy little utility to have in your desktop tool kit for those just in case scenerios.

it has proven to be reliable and i have found nothing suspicious with it.

anomoly reviewed v1.14.321 on May 21, 2008

Who gives a s***e what they call it? It's a standalone RENAMABLE (you could give it your own name 'barney') exe and compressable to 532kb.
Free too.
pretty cool too as it now has a wizard.
Quite obviously they did NOT name it recover so that you, the user, could use that word without fear of conflict.
I'm sure there are birds with a better grasp of the english language than you guys. ok it's a tie-lol

Banquo reviewed v1.13.304 on Apr 22, 2008

Good utility, stupid name. From this point on Piriform is pronounced "Styrofoam" and my name is pronounced "Barney".

mjm01010101 reviewed v1.12.291 on Mar 19, 2008

""pronounced "recover")"

uh, no. I'll pronounce it "recuva." I typically follow the rules of the English language.

echohead reviewed v1.11.257 on Feb 27, 2008

gotta love it...a single portable exe that recovers deleted files. it still doesnt seem to find ALL the files ive recently deleted, but hopefully this is something thats being fixed

then again, maybe its because im running 64-bit XP. that shouldnt cause problems, but you never know.

mjm01010101 reviewed v1.11.257 on Feb 26, 2008

This utility saved my a** last night as I had just deleted a folder I didn't think I needed but appeared to be hard-linked to another folder. Murphy's law, my next step was going to be to setup a backup, as well.

shodan816 reviewed v1.11.257 on Feb 26, 2008

Tested this utility thoroughly under Vista. It runs extremely fast and does a good job of identifying files for recovery. However, the secure deletion function leaves much to be desired, at least under Vista. Yes, I am aware that FileForum does not state that this utility works under Vista, however the author does. I 'undeleted' 3 plain text files and they were 'good as new.' Next I securely deleted them. Re-ran Recuva and this time it only identified 2 of the 3 as recoverable. Indeed this was true. I undeleted the 3 files again and this time one of them was 'empty', but the other 2 were 'good as new.' One more issue with secure deletion is that even IF files get securely deleted, the file name is untouched. File names often carry data such as bank account information, so it's important to obliterate the file name, as well as it's content. Summarizing - I would use this as a file recovery utility, but stick with one of the proven erasers such as 'Eraser' or '4Neurons Eraser' for true secure file (and file name) wiping.

Skyfrog reviewed v1.11.257 on Feb 25, 2008

The name isn't terrible, but it's dumb that they keep saying recuva is pronounced recover. Even a third grader knows better than that; stop trying to be hip author. Seems to work fine though.

asaenz reviewed v1.10.223 on Jan 31, 2008

Only thing stupid is your comment. It's just a name to give it a niche. Nice prog. Keep up the good work.

Banquo reviewed v1.10.223 on Jan 31, 2008

Works great, but what a stupid name. They obviously don't know how to speak english if they think recuva is pronounced recover.

elf-etc reviewed v1.09.194 on Dec 16, 2007

This was fabulous! I had deleted graduation photos from my SD card. Recuva recovered them in under 5 seconds.

maxstep reviewed v1.09.190 on Dec 6, 2007

Amazing recovery tool. Simply the best.

Cris3 reviewed v1.07.138 on Oct 27, 2007

Today I deleted the pictures I just photographed before I uploaded them to my PC. I had Recuva but never had an occasion to use it. It recovered the images no problem. I'm really happy I had the program when I needed it.

maxstep reviewed v1.07.138 on Oct 26, 2007

Amazing free recovery program! Works much better than bloated, expensive alternatives that I've tried.

bobad reviewed v1.07.138 on Oct 26, 2007

Best Freeware file recovery program I have found so far. It's portable, and no install needed. Just open the setup file with 7-Zip, extract only the EXE to USB flash drive or any folder, and it's ready to use.(Works for English users). By the developers of CCCleaner and Defraggler, a pair of other nice portable applets.

anomoly reviewed v1.07.138 on Oct 25, 2007

why install when it is a single exe?
now it's 300kb's upx'd

anomoly reviewed v1.05.118 on Sep 22, 2007

Wow! compresses to 273kb and works sweet as a single executable file.

runningfool reviewed v1.02.095 Beta on Jul 26, 2007

fast, reliable, portable, freeware, small, and from the makers of crap cleaner.

honestly, the only bad thing about recuva is that its in beta.

devilrider reviewed v1.02.091 Beta on Jul 18, 2007

poopcutter : thers a NO-Install version, just open eyes

A must on anny Recovery CD or USB stick (if one not found one that he likes more than recuva)

ecjs reviewed v1.02.091 Beta on Jul 18, 2007

Nice software although it is still on beta stage, which means there are a few bugs.

poopcutter reviewed v1.02.086 Beta on Jul 10, 2007

+ fast scan,
- some recovery of 'excellent' files came out corrupt,
? dont know actual accuracy didnt compare to any other recovery softw.
- made me install (sandboxie helped out on this issue).

Andrea.Sherry reviewed v1.02.086 Beta on Jul 10, 2007

So there are many others of this type. All appear to work differently-and it is really up to the user-can't say I noticed any guns pointing at me to compel my use of this program !

tarrith reviewed v1.01.069 Beta on May 17, 2007

Well I for one like this program because its simple and fast.

Yes, there may be a lot of other programs designed to recover deleted files, some of them take a lot of time recovering files that have been deleted/corrupted/over-witten.

joefabeetz:
Saying that it is a waste of time developing software that does the same thing as other software that has already been released is like saying Linux and Apple should not bother to be developped because M$ has already developped the perfect OS. Get real.

shodan816:
No it doesn't securely wipe deleted file (it's no supposed to)

Looking at the review of Ccleaner one would think that there are "MANY Users" happy with the way ccleaner works. It does get a 4.6 out of 5 score after all.

Tarrith

joefabeetz reviewed v1.01.069 Beta on May 16, 2007

i also agree with shodan. there are now so many of this kind of program and many are free. seems like waste of time to me too. and this one does not even allow wipe of files.

chowmein reviewed v1.01.062 Beta on Apr 28, 2007

This program seems useful to me. A well written, useful, freeware app is always welcome on the scene.

There still seem to be some problems with scans stopping before completion or crashing, but I will keep a watchful eye. 203kb is quite impressive!

Shodan. Writing a 1 star review without explanation of what is wrong with the program is infuriating and obnoxious. Try giving some feedback on the actual program.

shodan816 reviewed v1.01.062 Beta on Apr 27, 2007

We already have a gazillion file recovery utilities. It would be nice (and MANY users agree) if this author would fix (re-write) CCleaner to work properly instead of wasting most of his time on this...

Latz ! reviewed v1.01.062 Beta on Apr 26, 2007

Works fine, though I'm still trying to figure out how recuva is pronounced recover. :)

DatabaseBen reviewed v1.01.057 Beta on Apr 18, 2007

It works fine on my WinXP SP2 NTFS and seems a bit faster at scanning as well....

coover reviewed v1.01.057 Beta on Apr 18, 2007

Beta News reports this one is for Windows 2000/XP. If you're using something else (Win 98, ME, Vista), don't even consider downloading it. I suspect those of you that find that the app crashes are not using XP or 2000.

Tarun. reviewed v1.01.048 Beta on Mar 29, 2007

Crashes before reaching 10%.

yub-yub reviewed v1.01.037 Beta on Mar 25, 2007

it didn't work for me at all I deleted a video file that was too big for the recycle bin and i couldn't get it back

French_Pastiches reviewed v1.01.037 Beta on Mar 16, 2007

Crash, now, after Search fase: "Failed to reserve memory"

W2k SP4 (updated), 1Gb RAM, Sempron 3000+, Radeon 9250

bobad reviewed v1.01.037 Beta on Mar 8, 2007

Doesn't work on USB flash cards, so it's not much use. Crashed 3 times while scanning for deleted files. Oh well, it's beta.

On the positive side, I do like the GUI and small file size. It has good potential. I'll be waiting for the next release.

And| reviewed v1.01.037 Beta on Mar 8, 2007

I accidently deleted some files I had laying around, then I needed them.

I just ran this baby, it found the files I deleted, and brought them all back. It was many files and around 1gb. No problem. The speed it did it with, was just amazing.

matt2971 reviewed v1.01.037 Beta on Mar 7, 2007

A freeware file recovery utility from the same people who make the excellent C-Cleaner? Definitely worth a look.

This is still an early beta, and as such I did experience a crash (re-searching the same drive after changing settings), but the list of files was more comprehensive, and the info shown more relevant than the old Win Internals File Restore utility I was using before.

Definite promise....

savernake reviewed v1.01.037 Beta on Mar 7, 2007

Excellent program.

For coover. The name isn't a great choice in my opinion as the pronunciation isn't obvious. Piriform is British I believe and in most forms of British English the final 'r' is silent when pronounced by itself, so 'Recover' is pronounced 'recuvveh'. Hence 'Recuva'

French_Pastiches reviewed v1.01.032 Beta on Feb 20, 2007

This beta, no others, crashes in Search fase:
W2k SP4, 1 Gb RAM, Sempron 3000+

coover reviewed v1.01.032 Beta on Feb 19, 2007

Excellent program, particularly for freeware. But I wonder why the author spelled the name "Recuva", which under normal circumstances would be pronounced ree-cuh-va and then specifies it should be pronounced "recover" (ree-cuh-ver) with a hard "r". This reminds me of my favorite math teacher in high school who pronounced words ending with an "r" as ending with a soft "a" and words ending with an "a" as if they ended with a hard "r".

In any case, give the author a "5" for his great application.

JEdwardP reviewed v1.01.032 Beta on Feb 19, 2007

For the one file I've needed to recover since I first installed the program, it worked perfectly. As the file in question was a particularly large one, it's worth mentioning that some other file recovery programs set a severe limit on the size of the files their free versions can recover. This fine program imposes no such limit, and impressed me enough that I made a small donation to the authors via PayPal.

DatabaseBen reviewed v1.01.032 Beta on Feb 19, 2007

have used it without any problems.

the binary file downloaded cannot be installed until it is renamed by the user.

the .exe needs to be added to the filename.

JeremyP reviewed v1.01.026 Beta on Feb 10, 2007

Blows up with a windows error when scanning one of my drives, and then hangs. Great on the others it could check, but ...

guti reviewed v1.01.026 Beta on Feb 9, 2007

Does what it says. Pretty compact and stable.
If you do not want to install it, you can simply extract NSIS packaged contents using 7-Zip.

Hope the author will release soon a version without installer.

DatabaseBen reviewed v1.01.021 Beta on Jan 23, 2007

seems to pull up alot of files that
have been deleted.

there is a problem with installation at this time.

when downloading the freeware, save it as an executiable file by adding .exe to the filename.

otherwise, it won't launch/install....

DJHasis reviewed v1.01.021 Beta on Jan 23, 2007

I made a test-textfile that included some information and deleted it. With Recuva, I could recover without loosing any information :D
This software also has a very simple to use gui compared to many recovering software :D