12 Best Flash Drive File Recovery Software [2024 Guide]

Save any data from your flash drive with specialized software

Reading time icon 13 min. read


Readers help support Windows Report. We may get a commission if you buy through our links. Tooltip Icon

Read our disclosure page to find out how can you help Windows Report sustain the editorial team Read more

Key notes

  • If a flash drive with your important data becomes corrupted, then you definitely need the best tool for recovering files.
  • We provide you with a tool that offers native support for all file formats including photos, videos, email files, and more.
  • Another excellent program features the option to preview images, documents and file archives.
  • You can also choose a free version of a software that can recover data up to 1GB.
best flash drive recovery software

Many users use flash drives as a safe way of storing and transferring their data offline. It’s one of the most convenient ways of transferring files between devices that are not connected to the internet.

The main disadvantage is that the external drive can get corrupted for many reasons. Whether it’s because it contains files that are corrupted or some virus got through your antivirus, you need a method to recover everything on that drive.

If your flash drive is corrupted or you accidentally deleted your files, you might want to consider methods on how to recover those files.

Recovering files isn’t a simple task, and if you are not very experienced with computers, this job can be very tricky, and trying to manually recover all that data might seem impossible.

A fast and simple solution is to use a tool to recover the lost data for you. You will find up next some of the best flash drive recovery tools for Windows 10.

What is the best tool for flash drive file recovery?

Stellar Data Recovery – Cross-platform compatibility

This powerful recovery tool works like a charm on your flash drive. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg – Stellar Data Recovery can find and recover lost data from any external storage media and Windows-running device.

Not even encrypted drives, corruption-affected or formatted partitions are a match for this ultra-powerful app that can retrieve data in pretty much any file format you can think of with accuracy, by preserving the original features.

This tool has native support for all file formats including photos, videos, email files, and more with a reliable and accurate restoration of retrieved files.

You have the option to save the current scan and resume recovery another time which helps save time and effort in the rescanning process of the disk.

Stellar Data Recovery offers dual monitor support with which you can work on two screens at the same time without needing to minimize or toggle.

Stellar Data Recovery

Back up your flash drive and easily recover any missing files with the best tool on the market!
Free Trial Visit Website

Wondershare Recoverit – Four recovery modes

If you need to recover files from your flash drive, you might want to consider Wondershare Data Recovery. The tool allows you to recover different types of files including documents, archives, images, and multimedia files.

As for the supported devices, this tool supports memory cards, pen drives, digital cameras, music players, and USB flash drives.

You can also recover files from digital cameras and cell phones. Regarding file systems, you can recover files from FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS file systems.

To restore your files simply select one of the available recovery modes, select your drive and wait while the app scans the drive.

After that, select the files that you want to recover. The tool offers four main recovery modes: Wizard Mode Recovery, Lost File Recovery, Partition Recovery, and Raw Recovery.

One additional feature is the Resume Recovery option that allows you to resume the previous recovery session. This is especially useful since file recovery can sometimes take a while, so it’s always good to have this feature available.

Wondershare Recoverit

Rescue and restore your files to flash drives, memory cards, or any other Windows and Mac device.
Free Trial Visit Website

MiniTool Power Data Recovery – Load previous recovery results

MiniTool Power Data Recovery scan

Recovering data from a USB flash drive isn’t always easy, but if your files are corrupted or deleted, you might want to use the MiniTool Power Data Recovery tool.

This tool works with USB flash drives, memory cards, music players, digital camcorders, hard drives, and other storage devices.

It also supports a wide range of formats and it can restore documents, images, video, and audio files.

To recover your files, you just need to select the desired recovery program, select the desired drive and wait while the application scans the drive.

After that, you can preview and recover the deleted files. We have to mention that the free version can recover only 1GB of data, so if you need to recover more you’ll have to purchase a license.

The tool supports several recovery options: Undelete Recovery, Damaged Partition Recovery, and Lost Partition Recovery. There’s also a Digital Media Recovery and CD/DVD Recovery option.

Another useful option is the ability to load previous recovery results, so you can easily continue with the recovery process at any time.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery

A great tool with multiple recovery options, support for all formats, and cross-platform compatibility.
Check Price Visit Website

SysTools Pen Drive Recovery – Simple tool

USB flash drives are great for storing files, but if the files on your drive are deleted or damaged you might be able to recover them with SysTools Pen Drive Recovery.

This is a simple tool and it supports three different recovery options. The supported options are Normal Data Recovery, Deleted Files & Folders Only, and Formatted Partition Recovery.

The first option will help you extract the data from the USB flash drive, but you won’t be able to recover deleted files by using this option.

Deleted Files or Folder Recovery option will thoroughly scan the drive and allow you to restore the deleted files from it.

Formatted Partition Recovery option will help you restore the files from your USB flash drive even after formatting it.

In order to find your files faster, the tool offers a powerful search option which means that you can easily search through the recovered files.

Regarding recovery, the app supports both FAT and NTFS file systems. After you find the deleted files or folders, you can preview them before recovering them.

SysTools Pen Drive Recovery

Recover all deleted data from any flash drives you accidentally erased.
Check Price Visit Website

Wise Data Recovery – Portable version

flash-drive-recovery-Wise-Data-Recovery-1

Wise Data Recovery is a free data recovery tool that will allow you to restore files from your local drive, external drive, and flash drives.

This tool is compatible with almost any device that can hold information. According to its developer, the tool can also work with mobile phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, and other devices.

This tool uses an advanced algorithm so it can quickly locate the deleted files and recover them in a matter of minutes.

If you want, you can also choose the file type that you want to recover and enter keywords in order to speed up the scanning process.

It doesn’t matter what the cause of the file loss is, this tool will help you recover your files from permanent deletion, disk formation, and even virus attacks.

Wise Data Recovery is compatible with over 1000 types of files. It can recover anything on demand, even specific files.

This tool also has a portable version, so you can recover files from your PC or USB flash drive without installing this tool on your hard drive.

Wise Data Recovery

Recover 100+ types of files from almost any device that can hold information.
Free Download Visit Website

Disk Drill – Makes invisible copies

disk drill file recovery

Disk Drill is another tool that can recover files such as images, videos, music, or documents. The application comes with several options including Undelete Protected Data, Quick Scan, and Deep Scan.

There’s also a Universal partition search option, but if you want you can also run all recovery methods.

Disk scanning can take a while, especially on larger drives, and this is why Disk Drill allows you to pause the scanning and continue it later.

According to the developers, Disk Drill can restore your files if you delete them from Recycle Bin, but you can also restore them if they are deleted by power failure or partition damage.

The application offers a friendly user interface, so it will be perfect for basic users.

Disk Drill offers a smart detection feature that detects bad sectors on a drive surface thus increasing the chances for file recovery.

Thanks to the Deep Scan feature you can restore lost files based on their binary structure. The signature base has more than 200 signatures, so you can restore most files with this tool.

Another interesting feature of this tool is Recovery Vault. This feature allows you to make invisible copies of deleted files, thus making your files protected from accidental deletion.

In addition, this feature will make the recovery process faster and more efficient. By using this feature your metadata will remain intact in its original state.

Disk Drill

Make the recovery process faster and more efficient by using this great tool.
Free Download Visit Website

Recover My Files – Create disk images

The first time you start Recover My Files you’ll be greeted with a welcome wizard. The wizard allows you to choose between the option to recover your files or to recover your drive.

The recovery process is rather simple, and you just need to select the desired drive and let the computer scan it.

We have to mention that this isn’t free software, but you can try it out for free. The free trial version offers almost all the features and it allows you to recover both files and drives.

This application supports most file systems such as FAT (Ex,12,16,32,64), NTFS (3,4,5), and HFS, HFS+ (MAC).

This tool offers more than file recovery, you can also use it to create disk images or scan them, and there’s also support for RAID recovery.

Get Recover My Files software

Remo Recover – Save scan information

Remo Recover is another tool that lets you recover files from a USB flash drive. The tool allows you to quickly scan entire drives and find all your deleted files, even after removing them from Recycle Bin.

The application can also restore files that exceed the Recycle Bin size, so you can use this tool to restore large files as well.

Remo Recover doesn’t only recover deleted files, you can use this tool to recover files even after formatting your hard drive partition and performing a clean install of Windows 10.

If you accidentally forget to back up important files before installing a fresh copy of Windows, this tool might be able to recover those files.

The tool also allows you to create disk images with ease in order to bypass bad sectors.

Regarding the supported file systems, this application supports FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5, and ExFAT.

The application comes with an advanced built-in algorithm that recognizes and recovers more than 300 file types. If you want, you can sort the files by their name, date, size, and file extension.

Remo Recover can recover files from both hard drives and USB flash drives, but you can also recover files from SD, SDHC, MMC, XD, and Memory stick cards.

The tool also works with USB hard drives and FireWire devices. Regarding the supported hard drives, Remo Recover works with SATA, SCSI, IDE, ATA, SAS, and SSD. Of course, all major manufacturers are supported.

The tool allows you to preview your files before you restore them, and you can compress your recovered files in a Zip archive in order to save space.

Another extremely useful option is Save Scan Information. This feature will allow you to continue the scan of your drive even if you cancel it.

Get Remo Recover

Undelete 360 – Fast algorithm

This is a small but powerful application that will recover your files from a USB flash drive.

Undelete 360 uses a fast and efficient algorithm in order to search and recover deleted files.

This application supports both file and folder recovery. Undelete 360 can recover files from hard drives, digital cameras, USB flash drives, memory sticks, memory cards, and smartphones.

The tool lets you recover files that are accidentally deleted from your PC or from any other media. You can even restore files even after you remove them from Recycle Bin.

The tool also supports the restoration of files that are deleted by the command line or any other application.

The application allows you to preview your files before you recover them, in addition to the standard preview.

There’s also a hex preview available. Undelete 360 also supports the recovery of compressed and encrypted files on NTFS drives.

Get Undelete 360

Data Doctor Recovery – Simple interface

flash-drive-recovery-data-doctor-recovery-1

Data Doctor Recovery comes with a simple and slightly outdated user interface. As soon as you start this application you’ll be able to choose between several options.

You can choose between Basic Search, Deep Search, Photo Search, and Signature Search.

After choosing the desired option, you need to select your drive from the list of available drives. In addition to the list of drives, there’s also a small chart showing you the size of available partitions.

All that you need to do is to select a drive and click the next button and the drive will be scanned.

Data Doctor Recovery allows you to recover files from hard disks, USB flash drives, pen drives, removable media, storage cards, etc.

Get Data Doctor Recovery

IUWEshare USB Flash Drive Data Recovery – Appealing UI

This is another tool that you can use to recover lost files from a USB flash drive.

Regarding the supported files, this tool allows you to recover deleted videos, photos, documents, and audio files.

When you start the application you need to select what type of files you wish to recover. You can sort your files and show only specific types by using the file tree on the left.

If you want, you can also preview your files before you recover them. Additional information such as file size, name, and modification date is also available.

IUWEshare USB Flash Drive Data Recovery comes with a simple and visually appealing user interface.

Get IUWEshare Data Recovery

Puran File Recovery – 50+ data patterns

Puran File Recovery is a free application that you can use to recover files from your USB flash drive.

According to its developers, Puran File Recovery allows you to recover files from hard drives, memory cards, flash drives, and almost any other storage device. You can also recover files from formatted disks as well.

The tool comes with a simplistic interface and a powerful recovery engine. If you need to quickly restore deleted files, simply use the Quick Scan option and the list of deleted files will appear in a few seconds.

If you need to perform a detailed scan, there’s also a Deep Scan feature that scans your drive byte.

There’s also a Full Scan option that can detect deleted and lost partitions and recover files from formatted drives. This feature also supports RAW and Physical drives as well.

Puran File Recovery has more than 50 data patterns and supports hundreds of formats. After you find the deleted files, you can recover them with their original path structure.

As for your files, they are listed in tree and list views and they can be previewed before recovery. There’s also a search box that lets you locate the desired file quickly.

Puran File Recovery is a great tool and it’s available for free for personal use, so be sure to try it out.

Get Puran File Recovery

Recovering files from a USB flash drive isn’t a simple task, but you might be able to recover your files by using one of the tools from our list.

More about the topics: backup software, data recovery, recovery software