2025 Tax Return Disappeared

[skimel]

So sorry for your issue with TT.  It sure is frustrating when you lose your tax returns after completion.  With so many people having this issue, I do not know how TT cannot admit guilt.  I wonder how many other people have lost their tax returns and not reported that on the community website.  I can see lots of their customers not purchasing TT again next year.

S. Kimel

[mesquitebean]

To all:

I wrote a note yesterday to the forum leader asking him to confirm if developers are aware of this problem of "disappearing tax files after updates," and gave a link to this thread.  Over the years that I've been a volunteer in the forum, this used to be relatively rare, but this year it appears to have become more common.   I don't know if it occurs equally with Windows and Mac users, or if it's more common with one than the other.  In any case, he assured me he would check with the developers.   It might be helpful when anyone posts this issue if they specify if they are running Windows or Mac OS.    Thanks!

[djfoxalicious]

I will say I found a workaround for my problem, however this will not work for everyone.  It is still most definitely a TurboTax problem.  I did a system restore on my computer for my current return as I waited almost two weeks before I started back in working on my return.  Luckily, my computer was able to revert back to a restore point from 12 days earlier.  This also brought back all of my previous years returns that had been lost.   I then saved all of them on a flash drive and took the flash drive out.  Unfortunately, I lost some other files I had saved on my computer during that 12 day period as well!   While continuing to leave the flash drive not inserted, I reopened TT and it did the update again.   This time all my files were there and it didn’t delete them permanently.   This was a couple weeks ago and but I did not jump back into this forum thread until now.  This may be helpful for some still working on their returns.  The caveat is- not everyone will have system restore set up on their computer and the restore point may be too old to even capture the work they recently completed on their return.  This workaround doesn’t take away from the fact that clearly there is something wrong with the software and it deleting saved files on firmware updates!  What I don’t understand is why it deleted the files the first time I updated but not the second time with the same update.   Obviously it was still happening to many people after I did the update the second time successfully without losing all my returns.   Something is definitely wrong and Intuit hasn’t owned up to it.  There is no way they do not know about this!   After I was able to get current return and previous returns back, I said enough is enough and hired a CPA to finish my taxes.  I will never again use TurboTax moving forward!   

[ddunlap]

Windows or Mac computer?

[skimel]

I have Windows 11.

[malexjones]

Windows 11 for me as well.

[ddunlap]

This problem affects both Mac and Windows.

[bojackson63044]

Same here. Already transmitted my returns and received my tax refund. Went back to check for some information and the turbotax file that was opened up was completely different from what was transmitted.

[Vanessa A]

This could possibly be because you filed a return and then there was an update after you filed.  If this is the case, the numbers would have auto calculated to the current laws and updates.  

Do you see a number that says REV  with a date on it?

Did you print a PDF of your original copy?  Can you see what numbers are different or where the difference is coming from?

@bojackson63044 

[checksinthemail]

Vanessa,

bojackson63044 had a different problem. For many people, while working on the Federal 2025 return, TurboTax freezes. The computer is still working fine only TT is frozen. You forceQuit TT (on a Mac) and when it restarts, you are back at the very beginning. Your TT file is gone. Maybe you can use Time Machine on the Mac to recover some version of your file, otherwise you start over. It is a serious flaw in TT.

Regards,

John

[bojackson63044]

@Vanessa A the version that opened up was completely blank, as if I'm starting from scratch. 

From some additional digging - I use Google Drive to store my Turbotax file and the file that is currently there is showing a last modiified date of 12/28/2025 (see screenshot below). That's the date I purchased Turbotax. So it makes sense the file is blank.

I transmitted my tax return on 3/9/2026 so for sure the most current version was deleted. The sad part is Google Drive only keeps the most recent 100 versions of the file for 30 days so I can't even go back to recover the older file version from 3/9/2026.

It seems incredible to me that an update would "accidentally" permanently delete a previously saved file. There must be some disgruntled employee that inserted some code into the update package as a way to get back at Intuit.  

[checksinthemail]

Unless Intuit acknowledges their terrible bug along their fix, I'm looking elsewhere for 2026 Tax Year.

[uoduck1]

This also happened to me - both 2025 and 2024 disappeared! I was on the phone with TurboTax rep for over an hour and she accessed my computer (Mac) and couldn’t find anything, either. Mine disappeared after running the update for a “final check”, in my mind. I had spent so many hours entering everything and then all was gone. And this was the 1st year I had procrastinated until April 13. Such a stressful situation! I was so burned out when things got submitted on the 15th - and now I believe I missed a few deductions. I just can’t deal with going back over everything. I’ve heard from a number of people that Free Tax worked for them - I’m not familiar with it, but will try that next year! 

[checksinthemail]

It was 3pm on the 15th when my return vanished. And in 2025 I had contract business income. What fun! At least I had all my documents at hadn and made it by 10pm. But stressful and I'm not sure I caught everything either. My daughter uses Free Tax and next year I'll give it a go.