# balenaEtcher (open-source data recovery and backup tool)

> balenaEtcher is a free, open-source data recovery and backup tool for Windows, macOS and Linux. Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily. It has 34,481 GitHub stars and is released under the Apache-2.0 license. Its source code is on GitHub at balena-io/etcher.

Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily. Etcher is a powerful OS image flasher built with web technologies to ensure flashing an SDCard or USB drive is a pleasant and safe experience. It protects you from accidentally writing to your hard-drives, ensures every byte of data was written correctly, and much more. It can also directly flash Raspberry Pi devices that support USB device boot mode.

## Key facts

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Repository | https://github.com/balena-io/etcher |
| Platforms | Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Interface | desktop GUI |
| GitHub stars | 34,481 |
| License | Apache-2.0 (open source) |
| Replaces | n/a |
| Language | TypeScript |
| Website | https://etcher.io/ |
| Official | yes (published by the project behind the app) |
| Category | Data recovery & backup |
| Latest release | v2.1.7 (Sep 18, 2026) |
| Last commit | Sep 18, 2026 |

## Install

### Chocolatey (Windows)

```sh
choco install etcher
```

Package page: https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/etcher

### AUR (Arch Linux)

Package page: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/balena-etcher

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Canonical page: https://appsgit.com/desktop-apps/balenaetcher
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