Method and system for recovering data

The invention provides a method for recovering data. The method includes A, receiving data types of required-to-be-recovered data selected by a user; B, detecting capacity 1 of a server for data of data types identical to the data types of the required-to-be-recovered data, detecting local storage surplus capacity 2 of a mobile terminal, comparing the capacity 1 to the capacity 2, interrupting a recovery procedure if the capacity 1 is higher than the capacity 2, or executing a step C if the capacity 1 is not higher than the capacity 2; C, downloading the required-to-be-recovered data from the server to the mobile terminal to recover the required-to-be-recovered data in the mobile terminal, and displaying recovery results after the required-to-be-recovered data are completely recovered. The method has the advantages that owing to a mode that the data are recovered from the server, the problem of extensive data recovery work can be solved, the computational complexity of the local mobile terminal can be reduced, resource consumption can be decreased, the important data can be effectively protected against loss, and the method is convenient and is easy to implement.