DiskDigger can recover deleted files from most types of media that your computer can read: hard disks, USB flash drives, memory cards, CDs, DVDs, and floppy disks. (Note: DiskDigger cannot recover data directly from Android or iOS devices plugged into a USB port on your PC. To recover data from an Android device, please use the DiskDigger app for Android. And if your Android device uses a microSD card for storing the data, please remove the card and connect it directly to your PC using a card reader, so that you can scan it directly using DiskDigger for Windows.)
DiskDigger has two modes of operation which you can select every time you scan a disk. These modes are called "dig deep" and "dig deeper." Here is a quick list of features for each mode:
Dig Deep
- Undelete files from FAT (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32), NTFS, and exFAT partitions.
- Recover any type of file.
- Filter recoverable files by name and size.
- Sort recoverable files by name, size, date, and directory.
Dig Deeper
- Scan (carve) entire disk for traces of specific file types.
- Supported file types include:
- Photos and images:
- JPG - Pictures stored in digital cameras and on the Web (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
- PNG - Portable Network Graphics
- GIF - Graphics Interchange Format
- BMP - Windows and OS/2 bitmap image
- TIFF - Tagged Image File Format
- ICO - Windows Icon
- ANI - Windows animated cursor
- CR2 - Canon raw image
- SR2 - Sony raw image
- NEF - Nikon raw image
- DCR - Kodak raw image
- PEF - Pentax raw image
- RAF - Fujifilm raw image
- RW2 - Panasonic/Lumix raw image
- LFP - Lytro raw image
- MPO - Images from 3D cameras (Multiple Picture Object)
- DNG - Adobe Digital Negative
- SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics
- HEIC/HEIF - High Efficiency File Format image
- PSD - Adobe Photoshop image
- RAS - Sun raster image
- PSP - Paint Shop Pro image
- Thumbcache - Windows thumbnail cache
- IFF - Amiga images and other media
- ART - AOL Art images
- WMF - Windows MetaFile
- EMF - Enhanced MetaFile
- WMZ, EMZ - Compressed MetaFiles
- DICOM - Medical imaging format
- WEBP - WebP images
- PCX - ZSoft PCX images
- CDR - CorelDraw images
- INDD - Adobe InDesign documents
- CP - Adobe Captivate documents
- AI - Adobe Illustrator documents
- Documents:
- DOC - Microsoft Word document (2003 and below)
- DOCX - Microsoft Word document (2007 and above)
- XLS - Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (2003 and below)
- XLSX - Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (2007 and above)
- PPT - Microsoft PowerPoint presentation (2003 and below)
- PPTX - Microsoft PowerPoint presentation (2007 and above)
- VSD - Microsoft Visio document
- PDF - Portable Document Format
- XML - eXtensible Markup Language
- HTML - HyperText Markup Language
- RTF - Rich Text Format
- WPD - WordPerfect document
- WPS - Microsoft Works document
- PUB - Microsoft Publisher document
- XPS - XML Paper Specification
- WRI - Old Windows Write document
- ODT, ODS, ODP, ODG - OpenDocument formats
- DPP - Serif DrawPlus document
- PPP - Serif PagePlus document
- Audio and video:
- MP3 - Audio format widely used in digital media players (MPEG layer 3)
- WMA - Windows Media Audio
- AVI - Audio Video Interleave
- WAV - Wave audio
- MID -Musical Instrument Digital Interface
- FLV - Adobe Flash Video
- WMV - Windows Media Video
- MOV - QuickTime video
- M4A - MPEG-4 audio
- M4V, MP4 - MPEG-4 video
- 3GP - Third Generation Partnership video
- F4V - Adobe Flash video based on MPEG-4 Part 12
- RM - RealMedia video
- RMVB - RealMedia video (variable bitrate)
- MKV - Matroska video
- MPEG - Motion Picture Experts Group
- AU - Sun Microsystems audio
- MTS, M2TS - MPEG2 Transport Stream
- R3D - RED Video Camera video
- APE - Monkey's Audio file
- OFR - OptimFROG lossless audio
- PPM, PGM, PBM - Netpbm images
- WEBM - WebM videos
- Compressed archives:
- ZIP - Widely used compressed format developed by PKWARE
- RAR - Roshal ARchive, used by WinRAR
- 7Z - Compressed format used by 7-Zip
- GZ - Compressed format used by gzip
- SIT - Compressed format used by StuffIt for Mac
- ACE - WinAce archive
- CAB - Microsoft Cabinet archive
- SZDD - Compressed files created by COMPRESS.EXE from MS-DOS
- Miscellaneous:
- ISO - Images of optical media, such as CDs and DVDs
- EXE - Windows or MS-DOS executable file
- DLL - Windows or MS-DOS dynamic-link library
- MDB - Microsoft Access database (2003 and below)
- ACCDB - Microsoft Access database (2007 and above)
- PST - Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders file
- DBX - Microsoft Outlook Express data file
- XAC - GnuCash data file
- KMY - KMyMoney data file
- DWG - AutoCAD drawing
- DXF - Drawing Interchange Format
- CHM - Microsoft Compiled HTML Help file
- TTF, TTC - TrueType font
- CLASS - Java class file
- KMZ - Google Earth location data
- FIT - Garmin activity file
- WALLET - Armory Bitcoin wallet
- WALLET.DAT - Bitcoin Core wallet
Common Features
- Works in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows are supported.
- Also works in Linux.
- View recoverable files as a list, or as thumbnail previews.
- Thumbnails will show previews of image files, album art from MP3 and WMA files, and icons from executable files!
- Selecting a recoverable file brings up a full preview of the file (insofar as possible). For image files, it will show the image (with pan and zoom). For document files, it will show a text-only preview of the document. For certain audio files, it will allow you to play back the sound.
- Previews of JPG and TIFF files will show EXIF information (camera model, date taken, sensor settings, etc.).
- Previews of MP3 files will show ID3 information (artist, album, genre, etc.).
- Previews of ZIP files will show a list of files contained in the archive.
Advanced Features
- Able to scan virtual disk image files:
- E01 and EWF files (Expert Witness Format)
- VMDK files (VMware disk image)
- VHD files (Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk)
- VDI files (VirtualBox disk image)
- Direct binary disk images (acquired with <code>dd</code> or similar tools)
- When digging deeper, ability to start scanning from a specific location on the disk.
- When previewing files, the program optionally shows the first 4K bytes of the file as a hex dump.