Manatee
Rebuilds what survives in a damaged file on Mac and says exactly how much came back
Manatee opens files that won't open — damaged video, PDFs, archives, photos, documents across 125 extensions — and writes out whatever it can still read, rebuilding the broken index or cross-reference table rather than guessing at missing bytes. It shows the exact result, like '34 of 41 pages', or, honestly, '0 of 41 recovered' when nothing survived. The same app converts between formats, shrinks files to fit a specific limit like WhatsApp's 16MB, and strips EXIF/GPS metadata from photos and documents. It's $9 once with no subscription, nothing is uploaded, and it runs on macOS 12 or later on both Apple Silicon and Intel.
What holds up
- +Shows the exact recovery result, like '34 of 41 pages', instead of a vague success message
- +$9 once, no subscription, and nothing is uploaded — repairs happen on your Mac
- +125 file extensions covered, from video and PDFs to archives and spreadsheets
- +Reduce targets the actual limit a form enforces (16MB WhatsApp, 1GB Slack) instead of a guess
Mind the limits
- −Admits plainly that some damage can't be fixed — missing bytes stay missing either way
- −macOS only — Windows or Linux users with a damaged file have no equivalent here
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