How to Recover Deleted or Corrupted MOV Files, Even From SD Card

MOV is a multimedia container created by Apple. You may have realized that the videos recorded with macOS QuickTime Player is saved in MOV format, also MOV is compatible on Windows. We may have saved many videos in MOV format. But what if these MOV files get lost or are deleted by accident? What if MOV files get corrupted or damaged and not playing? How do we recover a MOV file?

If you have backed up your MOV files, the recovery job can be quite easy, if you don’t have a backup, we will recommend using a professional data recovery tool. Here we will share several ways to recover deleted or corrupted MOV files on Mac, Windows, some of these solutions support SD Card MOV files recovery.

We Recommend Recovering MOV Files with A Computer

If you want to recover MOV files from a SD Card, there are 2 ways: with or without computer, but we always recommend our users to recovering files from SD Card on a computer by using built-in or 3rd party tools. Why?

The data recovery process involves reviewing, scanning, identifying and copying data within the storage device, it checks the entire hard drive or memory card, which take spaces and time to go through. While a computer has a larger capacity and better performance to run a faster data recovery process. You can quickly scan files on your computer, but also can run a deep scanning to find lost files as many as possible, that’s why Mac/Windows data recovery programs have a higher recovery rate than Android/iPhone data recovery apps. Therefore, many PC data recovery software supports recovering files from external hard drive or memory card.

How to Recover Deleted/Lost MOV Files?

For Mac Users

Though MOV is compatible on both macOS and Windows, MOV is more macOS friendly. That’s to say, there are more possibilities that you need to recover MOV files on a Mac. In this part, we will share the easiest way to recover MOV files on mac, no matter the MOV file is saved on your mac internal hard drive, or external storage device, like SD Card, USB, etc.

#1 Using Cisdem Data Recovery

Cisdem Data Recovery is the Mac MOV recovery tool you should try to get your files back. Its first release was in 2013, with Cisdem’s persistent hard work for consecutive 9 years, it helps more and more users to recover their files successfully. This tool is designed to recover 200+ types of files from both mac internal and external hard drive, it applies to recover files lost under different situations: delete, format, disappear, system crash, power off, etc.

Why Cisdem Data Recovery?

• Easy to use
• Recover files from internal & external hard drive, USB, SD Card, cameras, memory cards, etc.
• Recover 200+ types of files: document, video, audio, image, archive, etc.
• Support recovering 20+ video formats: MOV, MKV, SWF, FLV, MPG, etc.
• Restore files lost due to different causes
• 5 recovery modes offered
• High recovery rate

Tutorial #1 Recover Deleted MOV Files on Mac

1. Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery to your mac.
   Free Download
2. Choose a recovery mode, you are recommended to start with Basic Data Recovery Mode.
3. Choose the location for Where Did You Lose Your Files and click Scan to start the scanning.
4. Go to Video>MOV.
5. Select the MOV files you want to recover and click Recover to get them back to your mac.

Tutorial #2 Recover Deleted MOV Files from SD Card on Mac

1. Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery to your Mac.
   Free Download
2. Connect your SD Card to Mac slot or using a card reader.
3. Run Cisdem, choose External Drive Recovery mode.
4. Select your SD Card, click on Scan to start the scanning on your SD Card.
5. Go to Video>MOV.
6. Find and select the MOV files you want to recover, click Recover and choose your SD Card to save the recovered MOV files to.

#2 Recover MOV Files on Mac with Time Machine

In my opinion, one of greatest apps from macOS is Time Machine, it helps mac users to back up their files and offers a perfect solution to get lost or deleted files back. If you have enabled Time Machine on your mac, recovering MOV files is as easy as a cake and there is no way you cannot get them back.

Steps to Recover MOV Files on Mac with Time Machine

1. Go to Finder>Time Machine, run the program.
2. Once Time Machine is running, open the folder in which your MOV files are saved.
3. Use the timeline to find your MOV files fast.
4. Once the MOV files are located, click Restore to recover the lost or deleted MOV files from your Time Machine backup.

This solution also tells us how important it is to back up your file daily, weekly or monthly. Today, we live and work with data, such data saved in various file types, with a number of thousands on an average, data loss becomes inevitable, so we have to develop a habit to back up files, especially important files.

#3 Get Deleted MOV Files Back from Trash Bin

Getting MOV files back from Trash Bin may seem infeasible, even incredible to some users, but it is not.

Whenever we delete a file on mac, the file is just moved to the Trash Bin, the file still exists on your mac, laying in your Trash Bin, you have 2 ways to process these removed files in your Trash bin, Put Back or Delete Immediately for permanent deletion. If you did nothing after you moved a file to Trash, the Put Back feature will help to recover a MOV file.

Steps to Recover Deleted MOV Files from Trash Bin

1. Go to Trash Bin.
2. Find the deleted MOV files, right click on the file and choose “Put Back”.
3. Then the MOV file will show in Finder, indicating the original saving location.

So, it seems that we should be very careful when emptying the Trash Bin, leaving a way open for the future.

For Windows Users

To recover lost or deleted MOV files on Windows, you will need another dedicated data recovery tool---Wise Data Recovery.

Wise Data Recovery helps Windows users to recover various files from local drive, external drive, USB, SD Card, mobile device and so on, including documents, videos, audios, photos and emails.

Wise Data Recovery Features

• Recover files from internal and external storage.
• Restore 1000+ types of files.
• Support recovering 10+ video formats: AVI, MOV, MP4, M4V, etc..
• 2 scan modes: Quick and Deep.

Steps to Restore Deleted MOV Files from Windows

1. Download and install Wise Data Recovery to your Windows PC.
2. Run the program, select the hard drive where your MOV files were stored.
3. Choose a scan mode, you are recommended to start with Quick Scan.
4. Find the MOV files you want to recover, select and click Recover button to get them back on Windows.

Steps to Restore Deleted MOV Files from SD Card on Windows

1. Download and install Wise Data Recovery to your Windows PC.
2. Connect your SD Card to Windows.
3. Run the Wise Data Recovery, select the SD Card you want to recover MOV files from.
4. Choose a scan mode.
5. Select the MOV files and click Recover to restore the MOV files.

How to Recover Corrupted/Damaged MOV Files?

You may have successfully recovered a MOV file but later to find the recovered MOV files not playing. Or your MOV files just get corrupted for different reasons: bad sector, virus attack, improper transfer or technical glitches. To recover a damaged MOV file, we need an dedicated and advanced video repair software, here we recommend Stellar Video Repair, it is available on both macOS and Windows.

Main Features of Stellar Video Repair

• Repair MOV, MP4, AVI, MKV, approx. 20 video formats
• Repair multiple videos at the same time
• Repair mildly and severely damaged videos
• Preview repaired videos 

Steps to recover corrupted or damaged MOV files on Mac and Windows

1. Download and install Stellar Video Repair on your Mac or Windows.
2. Add the corrupted MOV videos to the “Add File” area.
3. Click on Repair and start the repair process.
4. The preview the repaired MOV files and select them to recover to your desired location.

Conclusion

I know how terrible it is when you feel you are going to lose some of your precious files forever, if this does happen, don’t just give up, try to get them back. To recover files, including your MOV videos, you can try any one of above listed solutions basing on your situation. But the one comes with higher recovery rate is always using a piece of professional data recovery software, like Cisdem or Wise Data Recovery, they simplify the recovery workflow and are much likely to get all your lost files back.