Scalpel
The facts below are what the maker publishes about Scalpel, checked and dated. Our editors have not written about it yet.
Plans and prices
From Scalpel's own pricing page, checked 12 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Scalpel | Free | Open source data carving tool |
The facts
Each one read from Scalpel's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Carving patterns
- Scalpel carves files using patterns based on fixed binary strings or regular expressions.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Configuration
- The included scalpel.conf has all supported file patterns commented out, so users must edit it to activate patterns.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Features
- The README lists minimum carve sizes, multithreading, asynchronous I/O, regular-expression headers and footers, and embedded header/footer matching among the v2.0 features.checked 12 Oct 2026
- File preview
- Yeschecked 19 Sep 2026
- GPU support
- GPU execution is available only on Linux, requires the NVIDIA CUDA SDK and a compatible NVIDIA GPU, and does not support regular-expression-based headers or footers.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- The README says an effort to integrate Scalpel with Autopsy through Java/JNI bindings was abandoned after memory leaks were encountered.checked 12 Oct 2026
- License
- The README says Scalpel was released under the Apache 2.0 License; the repository includes an Apache License 2.0 text file.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Maintenance
- The project says Scalpel is not actively maintained and no official releases are being made.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Operating systems
- Linux,Windows,macOSchecked 19 Sep 2026
- Other Unix systems
- The project says it does not currently support Unix variants other than Linux and advises thorough testing before production use on alternate platforms.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Scalpel is an open source file carving and indexing application.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Recovery sources
- disk imageschecked 19 Sep 2026
- Support
- The README says pull requests may be submitted but may take a while to be reviewed.checked 12 Oct 2026
The company
- Founded
- 2005checked 28 Sep 2026
Money
- Free plan
- Yeschecked 19 Sep 2026
Where it runs
- Platforms
- The README describes Linux and Windows support and gives compile instructions for Linux and Mac OS X.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Windows download
- The README says a precompiled scalpel.exe is provided for Windows.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Windows limitation
- Carving Windows physical and logical device files is not currently supported.checked 12 Oct 2026
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