Recover Important Deleted Mac Files after Cleaning up Hard Drive

Summary: The blog describes the Mac startup disk full error and explains how system cleanup can help resolve this issue. Also, it defines how backup can help restore entire data back to your Mac and also suggests an alternate solution in case there is no backup available. 

‘Startup disk full’ is a recurrent issue every Mac user experiences. The situation may seem serious initially, but the good news is that it has multiple solutions. You can initially start with mac cleanup task that will help you remove all redundant files from the hard drive.

The latest macOS offers a new utility that removes junk files from your Mac hard drive. You can clean up iTunes shows, movies, or any other data which you no longer require. You can also set Trash to automatically empty after 30 days. All these features appear efficient. But what if you need to restore deleted data back to the machine after the expiry of its retention period in Trash?

Before heading to the resolution, let’s first understand the reasons that cause the startup disk to appear full at times.

Step-by-Step Guide to Data Recovery

Step 1: Download and Install

• Visit the Stellar Data Recovery website and download the Mac Data Recovery tool.
• Install the software on your Mac by following the on-screen instructions. Ensure it’s not installed on the drive you intend to recover data from.

Step 2: Launch the Software

• Open the Stellar Mac Data Recovery application.
• Grant necessary permissions if prompted (e.g., full disk access from System Preferences > Security & Privacy).

Step 3: Select Data Types

• On the main interface, choose the type of data you want to recover: Documents, Photos, Videos, Emails, or All Data.
• Click Next to proceed.

Step 4: Choose the Drive

• The software will display all available drives and partitions on your Mac.
• Select the drive or partition from which you need to recover data.
• Enable Deep Scan for thorough recovery, especially if the data was deleted or the drive was formatted.

Step 5: Scan the Drive

• Click the Scan button.
• Wait for the scanning process to complete; this may take some time depending on the drive’s size and the scan type.

Step 6: Preview Recoverable Files

• After the scan, the software will display a list of recoverable files.
• Use the Preview option to verify the content of the files before recovery.

Step 7: Recover and Save Data

• Select the files you wish to recover.
• Click Recover and choose a secure location (preferably an external drive) to save the recovered files.

Tips for Better Recovery

• Stop Using the Drive: Avoid writing new data to the affected drive to prevent overwriting.
• Use External Storage: Always save recovered files to an external device to avoid further complications.
• Enable Deep Scan: For severely corrupted or formatted drives, Deep Scan ensures maximum file recovery.

What Causes the ‘Startup Disk Full’ Error

The Startup Disk is considered as a partition that comprises the Operating System. Since each partition on the hard drive houses different data such as user data, operating system, and applications, the drive partition on which the Operating system is installed is referred to as a Startup Disk. It is common to have more than a single Startup disk; however, most Mac users prefer having a single startup volume rather than multiple for optimized performance.

Additional Tip!

Regardless of the platform you use, whether Mac or Windows, the best practice to keep the performance optimized is ensure that there is at least 10% free space on the hard drive. The storage volume should never reach beyond the 85% mark. As you go further, you are more likely to encounter slowness, low storage errors while multitasking or each time you try to download an application.

If you get an error message when your hard drive reaches the stipulated storage limit, it could be a serious indication that can lead to adverse consequences. Though these guidelines are essential to keep your system running and functional yet let’s touch upon the solution aspect when you experience this issue.

When the Startup Drive is Full

There are several workarounds that can help you free up space on the hard drive. These methods are easy and straightforward and will help you get a considerable amount of space on your storage media.

• Simply delete unwanted applications and additional files from Mac
• Move files to cloud storage media and delete them from the system
• Try connecting external storage drive to the Mac machine

Though these tips to cleanup your Mac hard drive are quite simple yet it is important to execute them with utmost consideration, else you can delete crucial files permanently. If somehow you removed important data mistakenly, you will have to recover deleted files from Mac hard drive with the help of Stellar’s Mac Data Recovery software.

What Calls Upon the Need to Cleanup Mac Drive

• File Permissions: Whenever an application is installed on the system, some additional files and programs arrive as integrated package components. This also includes permissions that specify what tasks can be assigned to a particular user.

Note: These permissions usually change with time resulting in frequent Mac freeze issues, performance lag, and subsequent crash. In such cases, some of the files and folders get affected and encounter loss of data or entire structure while repairing permissions.

• Bulky Applications: From Mac’s Activity Monitor, you can access the applications and programs that are using the most system resources. You may notice a consistent fluctuation in the counts, but it will give you an estimate about the apps that are accessing most resources. In a majority of cases, Firefox consumes most CPU resources as well as triple memory.

Recover from Backup

While trying to free up Mac hard disk space, you might inadvertently delete important files. For example, manually emptying the Trash folder without backing up crucial files, or accidentally formatting a partition or volume through Disk Utility while trying to perform some other activity, can result in unexpected data loss.

Since data loss can happen anytime, anywhere and on any device, it is advisable to back up the entire hard drive at regular intervals. If you have a complete backup of all important files, even after accidental data loss from Mac you can recover all your data without any troubles. However, in the case of ‘No Backup’, you’ll have to rely on third-party data recovery software to recoup all lost data.

If you end up needing a third-party data recovery software, then the application stated earlier in this blog is the most recommended as it is capable of recovering data from logical disk errors. You can recover data from APFS, HFS, HFS+. NTFS, FAT, ExFAT mounted partitions with the help of the Mac Data Recovery tool.

Stellar Mac Data Recovery – The Way Forward

As a whole, it can be concluded that Stellar Mac Data Recovery is a complete data recovery solution that offers quick rescue of data. Regardless of the factor that causes the data to disappear, whether it is file corruption, virus intrusion, disk failure, disk cleanup, logical error, structural inconsistency, partition loss, or any other reason, this software can be utilized to recover all possible bits of data from internal and external hard drives as well as Time Machine backup media and BootCamp Partition.