iCare Data Recovery Review (Free and Pro): 2023 Update

Here are some reviews from CNET regarding iCare Data Recovery:

As you can see, user reviews are quite different, even contradictory. Therefore, for users who feel hesitate to utilize this tool as a method of recovering lost files, we here give an objective review on iCare Data Recovery, helping you figure out if this tool can well meet your needs or not.

What is iCare Data Recovery?

iCare Data Recovery is developed by the iCareAll team, a dedicated company offering professional data recovery software and solutions, located in HongKong. Since the release of 2009, iCare Data Recovery now evolves to its current versions.

iCare Data Recovery is designed to help users recover files due to deletion, formatting, damage, corruption, Raw, virus attack and other reasons, with only 3 steps (Install, Scan, Recover), 90%~100% files will be rescued. Files that iCare Data Recovery supports to recover cover all types, over 600 formats. 

As you may have noticed on its official website, iCare Data Recovery has established a strong presence on its ecosystem, by offering solutions on different platforms, including Windows, iOS and Android. But the Mac solution is not included in its ecosystem, for the details, you can jump to “iCare Data Recovery Mac”.

iCare Data Recovery Free VS iCare Data Recovery Pro

For users who prefer to do data recovery on a Windows PC, iCare Data Recovery offers 2 solutions: Free and Pro. Though iCare has listed the differences between these 2 versions, our users are still confused about how far each version can take them to. Therefore, here we come to disclose more details.

Quick Review

iCare Data Recovery Free Review

Price: Free
Platform: Windows
Free Download Address 

1. Interface

The interface is quite neat, featured with a grey background. It is not modern in styling, but informative enough to instruct users properly. 

Unlike other data recovery tools, actions such as “Scan” or “Recover” on iCare Data Recovery Free is activated by clicking the button “Next”.

All the found files will be displayed in a list of directories, you need to click each folder and sub-folders to find the files and preview them for accurate recovery.

When scanning, users may get stuck on the interface, just wait several seconds to enter to the next interface. This situation will reappear when you take different actions on iCare Data Recovery Free.

2. Recovery Modes

iCare Data Recovery Free offers 2 recovery modes:

Deleted File Recovery---designed to recover deleted files from emptied recycle bin. After you have chosen Deleted File Recovery, iCare will start scanning and build directories for found files, then you can preview and select found files to recover.

Advanced File Recovery---designed to search more files under more data loss situations. Once you start with Advanced File Recovery, iCare will process the scanning, then list the found files on different partitions, it will indicate the possibility to recover files in 3 levels: High, Medium and Low. And you will be recommended to select those files with “High” possibilities.

I tried both 2 modes, but the final results didn’t differ from each other that much, except that Advanced Mode takes much longer time to scan and recover files. What’s more important is, iCare Data Recovery Free mainly focus on recover files deleted in Recycle bin, for recovering file lost due to other complicate situations, it failed short of my expectations. 

3. Scanning Speed

Deleted File Recovery mode processes the scanning quite fast. In my test, it takes about 1 minute to scan my 8GB USD drive and found nearly all the items that I have permanently deleted on my Windows PC.

Advanced File Recovery mode takes much longer time to finish the scanning. In my test, iCare Data Recovery cost about half an hour to finish the scanning on my 8GB USB drive. And when I tried to cancel the scanning, it responded extremely slowly to pause the scanning.

4. Features

Before recovery, you can use the toolbars on the top of the interface to recover preferred files, instead of consuming lots of time to recover all found files.There are 5 toolbars to make the recovery efficient:

• Find File---Input file name to locate the exact file that you want to recover
• Search Files---Input any letter contained in the file name and choose the one for recovery
• Preview---Preview the file to make sure you are selecting the right file for recovery, this is particularly useful when recovering photos.
• Thumbnail---Display all files in thumbnail, you can have a glimpse at each file, this is particularly useful when dealing with lots of photos or videos.
• Select All---Select all found files for recovery, so you don't need to select one by one.
• Deselect All---Deselect all found files for recovery, so you don’t need to deselect one by one.

5. Recovery

• Recovery Speed
  Actually, the recovery speed depends on how many files you are going to recover, but when comparing with other data recovery software, iCare performs quite “Normal” in recovery speed. But generally, the recovery speed under Deleted Data Recovery is faster than that under Advanced Data Recovery mode.
• Recovery Rate
  In my way of thinking, the recovery rate depends on 2 factors, how many lost files are found in the scanning phase and how many files are recovered in the final recovery. In the scanning phase, iCare didn’t find all the deleted files. For documents, such as PDF, Word, Excel, PPTX, etc, it can find approx. 90%, but for photos,audios and videos, it can only find approx 60~80%. In the final recovery, iCare did recover all that it found in the scanning process.
• Does the Recovered File Work?
  For all the documents, such as PDF, Word, Excel, PPTX that I recovered with iCare, I can open them and work on them, but for those photos,audios and videos, nearly 50% of them cannot be opened.

Does iCare Data Recovery Free Work?

1. iCare works on recovering deleted files, but not applicable for files lost due to other complicate reasons;
2. iCare can find and recover documents, such as Word, PDF, Excel, PPTX, etc in a high success rate, but for photos/videos/audios, both the scanning and recovery rate is relative low.
3. It performs average in scanning and recovering speed.

iCare Data Recovery Pro Review

Price: $69.99~$289
Platform: Windows
Free Download Address

1.Interface

Same as iCare Data Recovery Free, but there is a “Recover” button instructing users to start the recovery.

2. Recovery Mode

There are 3 recovery modes provided by iCare Data Recovery Pro:

Deleted File Recovery---Recover deleted files from emptied recycle bin

Deep Scan Recovery---Deeply scan and recover data lost due to deletion, reformatting or other reasons.

Lost Partition Recovery---Recover raw drive reports not formatted, recover deleted partition or partition unrecognized.

According to my tests, each recovery mode can bring satisfactory recovery results when we choose an appropriate mode under specific situations. While, the deep scan recovery mode, though costing longer time on scanning and recovering, it does get users better recovery results.

3. Scanning Speed

The scanning speed depends on the file quantity, but it seems that there is no difference from that using iCare Data Recovery Free.

4. Features

Same as iCare Data Recovery Free, 5 toolbars offered.

5. Recovery

• Recovery Speed
  Depends on the file quantity, and iCare doesn't outperform its competitors in recovering speed.
• Recovery Rate
  In the scanning phase, iCare Pro performs better than iCare Free, it finds more lost files. For documents, such as PDF, Word, Excel, PPTX, etc, it can find approx. 90~95%, but for photos,audios and videos, it can only find approx 85%. In the final recovery, iCare did recover all that it found in the scanning process.
• Does the Recovered File Work?
  Same as iCare Free. For all the documents, such as PDF, Word, Excel, PPTX that I recovered with iCare, I can open them and work on them, but for those photos,audios and videos, 25% of those files cannot be opened.

Does iCare Data Recovery Pro Work?

1. iCare Data Recovery Pro works applicable for nearly all situations leading to data loss.
2. iCare Pro can find and recover documents, such as Word, PDF, Excel, PPTX, etc in a quite high success rate, but for photos and videos, both the scanning and recovery rate is quite medium.
3. It performs average in scanning and recovering speed.

iCare Data Recovery Not Working for You? Try An Alternative

Even iCare Data Recovery Pro not working for your case? Here is the best alternative to iCare.

Cisdem Data Recovery allows both Mac and Windows users to recover nearly all types of files from various external or internal storage device. With its quick and deep scanning, you can rescue your lost data due to accidental deletion, formatting, corruption, virus attack, system crash/upgrade, etc.

• Quick and deep scan mode
• Support SD Card Recovery, USB Drive Recovery, Hard Drive Recovery, and all kinds of storage device
• Repair corrupted videos (mp4, mov, avi, mkv, m4v, etc.)
• Support automatic repair of images and documents if necessary
• Fast Scanning
• Allow previewing found files before recovery, including video, photo, audio, PDF, Word, Excel, etc.
• Allow searching specific files with keyword, file size, date created, date modified
• 95~98% of your lost files can be found
• 95~97% of found files can be recovered, all the recovered files can be opened and worked on
• Recover files to local drive or to cloud

How to Use the Best iCare Data Recovery Alternative?

• Step 1. Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery on your Mac or Windows.
  Free Download   Free Download
• Step 2. Choose the drive where you stored the lost data.
• Step 3. Click "Search for lost files" to find lost files, go to Type, check files in different type or format, or use the filter tool to quickly locate a lost file.
• Step 4. Preview and recover the files you want to recover.

In Conclusion

iCare Data Recovery Free is worth a try, it is 100% free and does good on recovering some deleted documents, such as PDF, Word, Excel, etc. But if your files are lost for other reasons (not deletion), or if you want to find and recover more lost files, you should turn to iCare Data Recovery Pro. Even it doesn't work, there are still outstanding alternative to iCare Data Recovery available for Mac and Windows users.