Disk Utility erased my APFS drive by mistake, and now I’m trying to recover deleted files before they’re gone for good. Has anyone successfully recovered data from an erased APFS volume on macOS, or know the safest tools or steps to try without making things worse?
First thing: stop using that drive. Seriously. Whether you emptied the Trash, deleted the wrong folder, or formatted the wrong APFS volume in Disk Utility, the files may not be gone yet. A lot of the time, macOS has only marked that space as available. The real damage happens when new data gets written over it.
So before trying anything else:
- Stop using the affected drive right away.
- Do not copy anything new to it.
- Do not reinstall macOS on that same drive.
- Do not run First Aid, TestDisk, or repair tools before you’ve recovered the files you care about.
- If it’s an external drive, unplug it until you’re ready to scan it.
If you have Time Machine, check that first. It’s the cleanest fix if there’s a usable backup. Even if the backup drive is not currently plugged in, it can still be worth opening Time Machine because APFS sometimes has local snapshots for recently deleted stuff.
If there’s no backup, then recovery software is probably the next move.
I’d probably start with Disk Drill for an APFS drive because it does more than just scan for random file signatures. Since it understands APFS, it has a better shot at bringing back folder structure, filenames, and metadata. That matters a lot when you’re trying to avoid digging through thousands of recovered files with useless names.
The basic workflow would be:
- Download Disk Drill, but install it on a different drive if you can.
- Connect the affected APFS drive, or select the internal drive if that’s where the data was lost.
- Give it Full Disk Access in macOS Settings so it can scan properly.
- Choose the drive and run Search for Lost Data.
- Let the scan finish. Stopping early can mean missing recoverable files.
- Use preview to check whether your photos, videos, documents, or other files are actually intact.
- Recover only what you need, and save it to another drive. Never restore files back onto the same APFS volume you’re recovering from.
One useful option is making a disk image first, especially if the drive seems flaky. That way you scan the image instead of putting more stress on the original disk. Disk Drill can also show S.M.A.R.T. health information, which helps you tell whether you’re dealing with simple file system damage or a drive that may be physically failing.
There are other tools too.
PhotoRec is free and can be very effective, especially for photos, videos, and documents. The tradeoff is that it works by file signatures, not the APFS file system itself, so you usually lose the original filenames and folder layout.
TestDisk can help when the problem is a damaged APFS partition rather than simple deleted files. I would not make it the first thing you run, though. Recover the important files first if possible, because changing partition information before recovery can make things messier if it goes wrong.
There’s one big catch with internal Mac SSDs: TRIM. If TRIM has already cleared the deleted blocks, software recovery will not be able to bring them back. That’s why speed matters. Also, if an encrypted FileVault APFS volume was formatted, the encryption keys are usually gone too, which often makes recovery impossible.
I’d skip DIY recovery and go straight to a recovery lab if the drive:
- keeps disappearing or is not detected reliably,
- clicks, grinds, or beeps,
- disconnects during scans,
- freezes the Mac when accessed,
- or shows serious SMART health warnings.
Those are signs of possible hardware failure. Repeatedly powering up a bad drive can make things worse.
Most decent recovery labs will do a free evaluation, and many use a no data, no fee model. Logical recovery often starts around $300–500. Physical damage is usually much more expensive, often $1,000 or more, depending on what failed.
If this was just an accidental delete or format, you may still have a decent chance. The key is not writing anything else to that APFS drive and starting the recovery process as soon as you can.
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Whether Disk Utility did a quick erase or actually changed the partition scheme matters a lot here. If it was a quick APFS erase, recovery software may still find data, but if you reformatted, reinstalled macOS, or the drive is an internal SSD with TRIM doing its thing, the odds drop fast. I agree with @mikeappsreviewer about not running repair tools first, but I’d be even more cautious about mounting the drive and poking around in Finder, since Spotlight, Photos, or macOS background jobs can write little bits of data without asking. If you can, make a byte-level image of the drive to another disk and scan that image instead of the original. Disk Drill is fine for that if you want a GUI, but don’t judge success by the file list alone. Preview a few important files before paying or recovering, because APFS scans can show filenames that look promising even when the actual file contents are trashed.
The nasty catch is that an APFS erase can leave the drive looking perfectly normal while the old directory records are no longer useful. That is why I would not get too excited just because a recovery app shows a tree of folders or familiar filenames. With APFS, you can get “ghost” results that look right until you try to open the recovered files.
I’d treat this differently depending on what Disk Utility actually erased. If it erased only a volume inside the same APFS container, you may still have a reasonable shot. If it erased the whole device and created a fresh container, especially on an SSD, I’d lower expectations a lot. And if this was your Mac’s internal startup disk, even booting normally to install tools is part of the problem because macOS is constantly writing logs, caches, indexes, swap, and updates in the background.
For the safest DIY route, I’d shut the Mac down, avoid booting from that disk, and scan it from another Mac or from an external boot drive if possible. Make an image first if you have another disk big enough. Then scan the image with whatever tool you trust. Disk Drill is fine for a first pass because it is easy to use and handles APFS better than basic file-carving tools, but I’d still preview the actual contents before paying or restoring anything. If the files are business-critical or irreplaceable, I’d skip experimenting and ask a lab before the drive gets powered on and mounted a dozen more times.
Disk Utility didn’t “delete files” the same way Trash does, so treat any nice-looking folder list as a maybe, not a recovery.
I’d connect it only long enough to make a read-only image, then scan that image with Disk Drill or another APFS-aware tool. The sneaky mistake is letting Finder mount the erased volume normally and browse around, because that can create new writes before you even start recovering.