I accidentally formatted my camera’s SD card during a file transfer on my MacBook Air. I stopped using the card immediately to prevent overwriting.
I downloaded Disk Drill to attempt data recovery, but both apps are not scanning the external SD card correctly. The scan results only show the files already existing on my Mac.
Has anyone experienced this? Is there a specific macOS setting (like permissions) I need to change so these apps can actually see and scan the formatted SD card?
It’s good that you stopped using the SD card right away. That gives you the best chance of recovering the photos.
I’d first check whether the SD card is actually being detected by macOS. Open Disk Utility and see if the card shows up there. If it does, make sure Disk Drill has Full Disk Access under System Settings > Privacy & Security, as macOS can sometimes block access to external drives. You can try a different card reader though.
If Disk Drill still isn’t picking it up properly, you could try Stellar Photo Recovery. It works excellent with accidentally formatted camera SD cards, especially for recovering photos and videos from Mac.
