I want to open old Turbotax files (.tax), from as far back as 1992. Is there any way to do that?

[DoninGA]

TurboTax only retains the last 7 years of online tax returns, the same retention period as the IRS.

To access your prior year online tax returns sign onto the TurboTax website with the User ID you used to create the account - https://myturbotax.intuit.com/

Start the 2022 online tax return by entering some personal information then click on Tax Home on the left side of the screen.

On the Tax Home webpage -

Scroll down to the section Your tax returns & documents.  Click on the Year and Click on Download/print return (PDF) or Download .tax file

If you used the desktop CD/Download editions installed on your computer, the only copy of your tax data file and any PDF's will be on the computer where the return was created.  TurboTax does not store online any returns completed using the desktop editions.

Or go to this IRS website for free federal tax return transcripts - https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript

For a fee of $43 you can get a complete federal tax return from the IRS by completing Form 4506 - http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4506.pdf

[Mike9241]

the IRS too only retains returns for the last 6 or 7 years so they likely won't have them for years prior to 2015.

there are websites like https://www.taxprinter.com/ (we don't vouch for them but many have used it) there's a fee of $45/year $80 if you also want state for that year.

some websites offer used Cd's for those years. there may be no valid license and Turbotax doesn't offer updates or state returns for years prior to 2019 so installing and opening the old .taxXXXX file might actually change the return from what you filed.

in the future, since hard drives/computers do fail save a pdf on your desktop and a second on offline storage  - either the cloud if you trust those websites or use a thumb drive. 

[Critter-3]

You could try the TaxPrinter service at  http://www.taxprinter.com 

They might be expensive and it is probably not safe to email tax returns back and forth  Their Website says…….
Tax e-files usually end with extensions such as .tax, ta5, .t00, .t01, .t02, .t03, .t04, .t05, .t06, or .t07 (you get the gist). We read most federal and state files (Windows and Macintosh) from years 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Known exceptions are TurboTax 1997, 1999 and TaxCut 2005 files which we can't read for technical reasons. TurboTax 1998 and 2002 files may show only the tax summary and the Form 1040.