How to...

Mac recovery software finds deleted files, recovers file data with deep scan or undeletes files with quick scan

Renzo Tavanti

Disk Drill is capable of scanning and recovering files from its vault in seconds.. Yes – that’s right … SECONDS! Making this the perfect utility for all heavy Mac users and novices alike.

Mike Hudson

I found this Mac App simply amazing. In the past I have tried various recovery software packages but Disk Drill is so simple to use, there is no great learning curve, and it works every time for me.

Evgeniy aka Slingshot

Download Disk Drill now!
(File size:23MB / 10th Feb, 2012)

Runs on any PPC
or Intel Mac with
Mac OS X 10.5+

How to recover data from an Apple iPod

It's easy to forget that every man-made device, even one as nifty as the Apple iPod, has its faults. One day it's working fine. The next, it won't boot up until after a full system restore. All your media gone, down the proverbial drain.

A friend tries to load some of your music on his laptop, but mistakenly synchronizes your iPod with his own computer. A mere two clicks of the mouse is all it takes to lose your precious music and settings.

Making regular back-ups is essential, so you are told, but no doomsday scenario could get you to make the switch; something like that won't happen to you, after all. Until it does. If you're reading this page, this might sound familiar.

Luckily it's not as hopeless as it might seem. Using CleverFiles' Disk Drill for Mac OS X, it's remarkably easy to recover data that has been recently deleted from your iPod by accident or by necessity. Read on for a complete walkthrough.

P.S. IMPORTANT: iOS devices are not supported yet. Apple doesn't allow mounting iPod Touch (as well as iPhone or iPad) as a disk, thus preventing the needed level of access for Disk Drill to let it recover deleted data from these devices. So, only iPod Classic, Nano or Mini are supported; they should be mounted in mass storage mode (can be activated in iTunes).

Download and run Disk Drill for Macintosh

#1 Download and Install Disk Drill

Get the latest release of Disk Drill from the Cleverfiles website and install it on your Mac OS X computer. Simply drag the application from the downloaded DMG to your Applications folder. Optionally drag the Disk Drill icon to your Dock as well for easy access.

Select your iPod (Shuffle, Nano, Classic, Mini)

#2 Select Your iPod in the Drive Overview

Upon selecting the recovery tab, you'll be presented with a list of all discernable storage media. Your iPod should be automatically recognized. Select the associated disk to view your recovery options at the bottom of the screen.

Quick Scan is used for iPod Recovery on Macintosh, Mac OS X

#3 Quick Scan for Lost Data

For iPod data recovery, we're going to use Quick Scan. A progress bar will show while Disk Drill scavenges your iPod for any salvageable files. This shouldn't take long. Remember that the chances of a full recovery decrease over time and with active use of your iPod, so don't wait too long if you need to recover data from your iPod on Mac OS X.

Locate the files you would like to be recovered on your iPod

#4 Recover iPod Preference Files

After scanning your iPod, Disk Drill will show you a list of files that might still be recovered. The iPod uses a slightly peculiar data structure, but your coveted files are easy to find if you know where to look. For preference files and metadata, you generally have to look in iPod_Control > iTunes > iTunes Library.itlp, although the exact folder path may differ slightly depending on your iPod model.

#5 Recover Music from the iPod

Your music will be located in iPod_Control > Music. You can try to recover the entire Music folder, or pick out individual MP3's. Note that your music artwork is stored in yet another folder, at iPod_Control > Artwork.

#6 Recover Video from the iPod

Video files are stored separately, in iPod_Control > DCIM and various subdirectories. Video files may not be previewed if QuickLook is missing a plugin for the correct codec, but you can always guess the codes your iPod was using and download the needed plugin to preview the videos you are going to recover.

iPod data recovery for Mac OS X is complete

#7 Preview and iPod Recovery

When you've made a selection of files and folders on your iPod that you wish to restore, click the Recover button at the bottom right of your screen. The Files can optionally be Previewed before recovery; this is particularly useful for ambiguous filenames. Disk Drill will put any recovered files in a folder on your Desktop by default, or any other folder of your choosing.