How Do You Extract Files on a Mac?

When dealing with dying disks, they may not survive the experience. It's often the first bit of advice you'll hear: turning it off and on again can be a good way to reset any gremlins in your system.

If your Mac won't switch on again, we suggest backing up your Mac at this point before running the risk of the disk failing again. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility, you may be able to recover your files.

If you're using Yosemite or an older version of Mac OS X, you'll see different options here, such as Repair Disk and the option to Repair Permissions. Note that Apple updated Disk Utility in El Capitan, and the options and capabilities have changed quite a bit since then.

To use Disk Utility, follow these steps:

1. Open Disk Utility - You'll find this in the Utilities folder, inside your Apps folder or by searching for it using Spotlight Search.

2. Click on the disk you are concerned about from the list on the left, and then click First Aid.

3. If during the process Disk Utility detects any issues and they're easily fixed, then it should be resolved quickly.

You'll see a warning that First Aid needs to temporarily lock the boot volume. It will then repair the volume if necessary. You'll also see a message indicating that First Aid will check the volume for errors.

If your drive is having problems and you become aware of this before the machine crashes, or if you manage to get it up and running again (or in the case of an external drive, your Mac is able to detect it), the first thing to do is launch Disk Utility. If you're very lucky, your hard drive (or SSD) isn't beyond repair, and you'll be able to fix the problem yourself and therefore get access to your files.

This article is part of a series about backing up your Mac; read more here: 'link to next article'.

SSDs are fundamentally different from HDDs, and although they seem to act the same, fixing them is a whole different matter. The chances of recovery are far worse, but we'll examine your options below. If your drive isn't a hard disk but an SSD (Solid State Drive), you may find the problem is more serious.

How do you extract files on a mac