Error message that says my return cannot be saved. Using Premier for Mac

[jesse333]

God bless you!! I’ve been using TT for 20 years and never had this issue. This year, for the first time, this extremely frustrating problem came up, causing a ridiculous amount of wasted effort (and unprintable language on my part). Then I found this solution . . .  and it worked! I’m very disappointed in TT—it’s clear the problem has been around for a while, and they haven’t solved it or offered an easy to find solution. I wish I could bill them for the hours I wasted.

[macuser_22]

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@jesse333 wrote:

God bless you!! I’ve been using TT for 20 years and never had this issue. This year, for the first time, this extremely frustrating problem came up, causing a ridiculous amount of wasted effort (and unprintable language on my part). Then I found this solution . . .  and it worked! I’m very disappointed in TT—it’s clear the problem has been around for a while, and they haven’t solved it or offered an easy to find solution. I wish I could bill them for the hours I wasted.

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Mac System Preferences have nothing to do with TurboTax.  That is part of the Apple OS.

[Stokestack]

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@macuser_22 wrote:

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Mac System Preferences have nothing to do with TurboTax.  That is part of the Apple OS.

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The application is supposed to request disk access, at which point the OS will prompt the user to allow it. Failing that, there's no excuse for Intuit not to present an alert to the user informing him that he must manually change security preferences to allow TurboTax disk access.

Feigning ignorance year after year is disrespectful to customers.

[philgrasser]

Jesse, 

please share your solution with me.  Can’t seem to find wha you did to solve this problem?  Many thanks! g. 

[792587]

Turbo tax will not let me save return or efile. This is a great problem, never had this with any others years I've used this software.

[Carl]

Can’t save my return to my Windows 10 computer.

Click the start button and above that button click the settings icon, which is the little gear wheel, to open the settings applet.

Scroll to the bottom and click the Update & security applet.

On the left, select Windows Security

Under “Protection Areas” click Virus and threat protection.

Under “Virus & Threat Protection Settings” click Manage Settings.

Scroll down to “Controlled Folder Access” and select Manage Controlled Folder Access

If necessary, turn ON controlled folder access. Then under that switch select “Allow an app through controlled folder access.”

Click Add An Allowed App, then select Recently blocked apps.

Now select TurboTax 2019 and work your way out of everything back to the desktop.

That should do it.

[nicarawattal]

Long-time TT user. I'm using TT 2020 Deluxe on MacOS Big Sur (11.2.3). Saving the TT file works every time when I save to a local hard disk, but whenever I attempt to save to a non-local disk (i.e., to a networked server), I get the "<file> could not be saved" error. Changing the "Full disk access" setting in Sys Prefs makes no difference. When I check the directory in the target disk using Terminal, I see that my userid has rwx access to the file, so writes _should_ be allowed. Something is seriously wrong here. Also, it's ridiculous for TT to need "full disk access": that's for things like backup programs and some utilities. TT is just an ordinary app.

[tiosancho]

Certainly you're right that a commercial application should not suffer from this defect.

However, "full disk access" is just a way of giving an application blanket permission for all volumes, instead of having to grant it access to a limited set of four locations that Apple has defined. If you go into security preferences under Privacy / Files and Folders, you'll see that Apple appears to have earmarked only four locations for individual access:

Removable volumes

Downloads folder

Documents folder

Desktop folder

[brad15]

This has been a multi year issue for me as well, including last year where I spent 4 hours on the phone with a tech support who in the end, just gave up and send me a new program. That did not solve the issue. Same thing this year. Can't understand why Apple and Intuit can't get along, but after using TurboTax since 1994, this is the last year I deal with this program unless I am soured they fix it.

[macuser_22]

Full disk access is a rather new Apple feature.   TurboTax is not doing anything different than prior years but the Mac OS is.

I believe that when first installing the software, the installer asks if you will allow TurboTax to access the calendar.  I think that answering no will deny full disk access that will affect file saving.

See this MacWorld article that explains it more.

https://www.macworld.com/article/231975/the-difference-between-accessibility-and-full-disk-access.ht...

[tiosancho]

The feature is at least a couple of years old, so there's no excuse for the current TurboTax not to properly request disk access.

Failing that, there's no excuse for the installer or startup screen not to warn users to manually enable it.

And failing THAT, there's no excuse for Intuit support to feign ignorance and act as though this is some kind of puzzling or rare occurrence.

This is simply lazy.

[paguthrie]

This was a really helpful article.  Thanks.

[nicarawattal]

On March 31, my copy of TT Dexlue 2020 was able to
save a TT tax return file to a local disk but not
to a networked disk (smb://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/path).
Saves to the latter failed with the "<file> could
not be saved" error message. The app did not ask
me for permission to write to a network volume, as
some other apps have done. I tried manually adding
the TT app to System Preferencess/Security &
Privacy/Full Disk Access, but that made no
difference: attempts to save a TT tax return file
to a networked volume still failed.

Today I did updates to the TT app. After the
updates, TT is now able to save a TT tax return
file to a networked volume. System
Preferencess/Security & Privacy/Full Disk Access
does not list the TT app as having full disk
access, and System Preferencess/Security &
Privacy/Files and Folders does not list the TT app
with access to network volumes allowed. So today
the TT app is working as it should have all along,
without benefit of workarounds like special
settings in System Preferencess/Security &
Privacy.

Environment: Mac Mini 2020 (M1 CPU), MacOS 11.2.3,
TurboTax Deluxe 2020.

Has Intuit identifed and fixed this problem? If
so, that's good news.

[Jedsky]

Giving TurboTax full disk access as you suggested, Stokestack, did the trick. No more issues with saving files. Thanks.

[Jedsky]

Read Stokestack's suggestion on July 15, 2020. it worked for me.