If your Tails becomes broken, for example, if it no longer starts, follow these instructions to recover data from your Persistent Storage.

<p>If instead, your Tails USB stick does start but the Persistent Storage fails
to unlock, refer to our instructions on [[recovering data from the Persistent
Storage when it has file system errors|fsck]].</p>

<p>We recommend you always keep a current backup of your Persistent Storage. To learn
how to create a backup of your Persistent Storage, see our [[instructions on
how to back up your Persistent Storage to another Tails USB
stick|backup]].</p>

We are presenting here 3 recovery techniques that work in different cases. We recommend that you try the 3 techniques one after the other.

[[Doing a manual upgrade|recover#upgrade]]

Doing a manual upgrade of your broken Tails might allow you to start your
USB stick again and use your Persistent Storage like before.

[[Unlocking from another Tails and copying using `rsync`|recover#rsync]]

If doing a manual upgrade doesn't work, you might be able to unlock your
Persistent Storage from another Tails USB stick and copy its content using
`rsync` on the command line.

[[Recovering from a partition image using forensics tools|recover#image]]

If unlocking your Persistent Storage from another Tails USB stick fails, you
might be able to recover some or most of your data from a partition image
using advanced forensics tools.

<h1 id="upgrade">Doing a manual upgrade</h1>

Doing a manual upgrade of your broken Tails might allow you to start your USB stick again and use your Persistent Storage like before.

Refer to our instructions on how to do a manual upgrade, either:

- [[Downloading and upgrading from Windows|upgrade/windows]]

- [[Downloading and upgrading from macOS|upgrade/mac]]

- [[Downloading and upgrading from Linux|upgrade/linux]]

- [[Upgrading by cloning from another Tails|doc/upgrade/#clone]]

<h1 id="rsync">Unlocking from another Tails and copying using <span class="code">rsync</span></h1>

If doing a manual upgrade doesn't work, you might be able to unlock your Persistent Storage from another Tails USB stick and copy its content using `rsync` on the command line.

Install Tails on a new USB stick onto which you want to recover your Persistent Storage. Make sure that this new USB stick is at least as large as the USB stick that has your broken Tails on it.