@ dell5dell wrote:
Subject: TurboTax Update Wiped Out My Entire File – Extremely Frustrating Experience
On the evening of April 16, 2025, at 9:33 PM, I completed the business portion of my tax return for both my wife and myself—over 10 hours of work.
The next morning, April 17, 2025, at 7:23 AM, I opened TurboTax, and a software update prompt appeared. I allowed the update to complete and then reopened the program. My tax file appeared in the usual location (upper left corner), with the same name, so I opened it—only to find it completely blank. None of the information I had entered was there.
Sorry you had all that trouble. I'm a fellow user. Are you using the Windows or the Mac version? Sometimes the data file is still present on the computer but may have become dissociated from the TurboTax interface; i.e., the shortcut to the file that's inside TurboTax. You didn't mention how you looked for it, so you may or may not already done the following: Did you search your entire computer system for any file ending in *.tax2024 (the tax data file?) If using Windows, the default location for the data file is in the Documents\TurboTax folder (or wherever you initially chose to save it), but it may have ended up in another location on your computer. A couple of users even reported in the past that theirs was surprisingly found in Windows OneDrive, or do you have any automatic backup? Also check the Recycle Bin in case it got moved there.
Also if using Windows and have multiple Windows user accounts, perform those same searches in each Windows user account.
Also your searching might encounter a *.tax2024 data file beginning with a tilde ~ such as ~*.tax2024. The tilde files are temporary backup tax data files, that sometimes come in handy, and can be opened like any other 2024 data file.
Since seeing these kinds of weird reports over the years, I've gotten into the habit of backing up my *.taxYYYY data file after every session that I work on the return. I send a copy to a flash drive every work session.
