2025 Tax Return Disappeared

[skimel]

I completed my Federal and Illinois tax returns for 2025.  All of a sudden those completed tax returns completely disappeared and I could no longer find them on my computer.  This disappearance happened after saving both tax returns many, many, many, many times.  I had to recreate my tax returns from scratch spending a great deal of time to do that recreation.  A friend of mine had the exact same thing happen to him.  This is not how a product like this should function.

S. Kimel

Northfield, IL

[Vanessa A]

Are you using a MAC or a PC?  If you saved the returns, they are saved to your hard drive and they should not disappear unless you delete them.  You can do a search or a .tax file and it should appear.  

Also, you can choose open tax return on the PC and it should give you the option or on the MAC you can use Open Recent and it will list the new returns.  

One thing you CAN do, is before you close out of TurboTax go to your My Documents TurboTax folder and you should see them BEFORE you close out of the program after you hit save. 

[skimel]

As I previously said, to the best of my knowledge I did not delete my 2025 tax return.  I saved the tax return many, many, many times during the prep process.  I tried looking everywhere that I knew to find it with no luck.  A friend of mine had the same disappearing of his Turbo Tax 2025 tax return.  So, my issue seems not to be an isolated issue.  I had to do a total reinput of my tax return into the Turbo Tax software which took quite a bit of time to do.

[user17694464374]

Same thing has happened to me and some other users and Turbo Tax does not have any answers. I am still trying to figure it out.

[SteamTrain]

It may not be the issue for you, but for some folks, they have backups to a cloud drive (like Windows OneDrive), and after a certain amount of time (user-settable I think), the file gets transferred to the cloud.  Maybe it  got moved there and just needed to be restored to the proper TurboTax directory on your local drive.

....or something else strange is going on, as this doesn't happen to the vast majority of other desktop users.

[skimel]

I do not use cloud storage; so, it did not get moved there regarding my disappearance issue.

S. Kimel

Northfield, IL

[user17694464374]

I do not use the cloud storage thank you for the suggestion.

[user17694464374]

I have seen other posts were all their tax returns have disappeared, but nobody has posted a solution yet.  It is very strange. 

[DonFS]

The same just happened to me. I just completed my taxes using the desktop version, and all of a sudden the tax file is gone. I did a file search on the whole disk, no luck. I tried a system restore, which didn't work. I used a recovery program looking for deleted files with no luck. I did a chkdsk which found no errors. I looked at the Windows logs but nothing showed errors about that time. 

[russellhamm]

Mine is gone too.

Desktop version.  Opened Turbotax to continue my return from last week where I left off and the file is gone.

-r

[MonikaK1]

Did you already try:

1. Open TurboTax again
2. Click the blue link Find a Tax File (which should bring up a list of ALL tax files, *.tax2025)

... and you didn't see any files? I have not encountered this issue before. 

Try the following steps from this help article except look for 2025:

1. Select the Start menu and select search.
2. Search for *.tax2025.
3. Don't double-click the tax file in the search results to open it, as this can cause errors.
4. In the left pane of the search results, select the > symbol next to the .tax file you're searching for. This will bring up information about this file in the right pane.
5. In the right pane, select Open file location. By default, TurboTax saves tax files in the My Documents TurboTax folder.
6. After locating the tax file in its folder, select your tax return.

If this still doesn't locate your return, see this help article for instructions on how to contact TurboTax customer support depending on which product you are using.

@skimel 

@russellhamm 

@user17694464374 

[skimel]

I did not have this type of problem resolution ideas when I encountered the disappearance of my tax return.  I searched to the best of my ability to find my tax return with no luck.  I had to move on; so. I spent hours reentering my tax return data.  At this point, I still have my re-entered 2025 tax return.  This disappearance just should not have happened in the first place.  Why are there so many people having the same issue of disappearing tax returns?  So far, nobody with a disappearing tax return has said that they were able to recover their disappeared tax return.  This is a significant software issue that needs to be addressed and admitted to by Turbo Tax.  Disappearing Turbo Tax tax return posts keep appearing on the Turbo Tax Community.

S. Kimel

[user17694464374]

I had to start from fresh also and go back through previous years for my depreciation.  I have no idea where they went. I would suggest everyone one to save on a USB drive from now on.

[user17743823129]

My return as well as that of my daughters has disappeared as well. Turbotax needs to get on this and fix it asap. 

Desktop version, purchased at Costco. Forms were transmitted- Franchise Tax board is now asking me questions about the return, but I can't access the return that was filed.    

[djfoxalicious]

Same exact thing happened to me.  Using Turbotax Premier 2025 locally on PC.  Updated today.  Last time I worked on our tax return was about a week and a half ago.  Now there is absolutely nothing!- Gone!, Zero, Zilch!!!  I spent multiple days working on this already!  It was saved locally to my computer.  The Turboxtax folder where it should be saved shows nothing.  A search of my whole computer and all hard drives shows nothing for any tax file.  This means it has deleted my 2024 return as well!  I just opened Turbotax 2024 and sure enough, there is no return to open for it either.  This is absolutely ridiculous for such a large company to mismanage and delete tax returns that include so much important fiduciary and personal information.  Intuit should be held accountable for this!!!  Every year the software has gotten worse but has still been just barely manageable.  Now, it is the final straw!  When you go and delete our previous returns, this creates a giant problem moving forward!!!