Most digital accounts stay active after you die until someone reports the death and asks each provider to close, memorialize, or hand over the account. Access does not transfer automatically to your family, and terms of service usually forbid logging in as you. The accounts you plan for in advance are the ones loved ones can actually reach.
That gap between what happens by default and what your family needs is the whole problem. Below is a plain walkthrough of how the major platforms handle death, what a legacy contact really is, and how to build a digital estate plan that spares the people you love a great deal of frustration.
Why your accounts do not just pass to your family
When someone dies, their physical belongings are handled through a will and the probate process. Digital accounts do not work the same way. In most cases you never owned the account outright. You agreed to terms of service that granted you a personal, non-transferable license to use the service. That license often ends at death, and the provider, not your family, controls what happens next.
This creates real friction. Your spouse may know your phone passcode but still be locked out of your email, because the email provider has its own identity rules. Even with the best intentions, family members who guess or share your password may be violating the provider’s terms or, in some places, computer access laws. The safer path is to use the tools each platform built for exactly this situation, and to leave clear instructions behind.
What is a legacy contact?
A legacy contact is a person you name ahead of time who is allowed to access or manage part of your account after you die. The key word is ahead of time. You set it up while you are alive and well, and the contact gains access only after the provider confirms your death, usually with a death certificate.
Apple and Facebook both use the term “legacy contact,” though they mean slightly different things. Apple’s Legacy Contact can request a copy of your data. Facebook’s legacy contact can manage your memorialized profile, such as updating the pinned post and responding to friend requests, without logging in as you. Setting these up takes a few minutes each and removes an enormous amount of guesswork for your family later.
How do Apple, Google, and Facebook handle accounts after death?
Each major platform has built its own after-death process, and they differ in important ways. The table below covers the tools that genuinely exist. Menu names and exact steps change over time, so treat this as the shape of what is available rather than a fixed set of instructions, and confirm the current process on each provider’s help pages when you set things up.
| Platform | After-death tool | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Apple (iCloud / Apple Account) | Digital Legacy / Legacy Contact | You add one or more Legacy Contacts who receive an access key. After your death, they use that key plus a death certificate to request your data, including photos and files. |
| Inactive Account Manager | You decide in advance what happens if your account goes unused for a set period: notify trusted contacts, share selected data with them, or delete the account automatically. | |
| Legacy contact / memorialization | An account can be memorialized so it stays as a place to remember you. Your chosen legacy contact can manage limited parts of it, or you can ask that the account be deleted instead. | |
| Memorialization or removal | A family member or friend can request that the account be memorialized or removed. Instagram does not offer a legacy contact who can log in and manage it. | |
| Microsoft | Next of kin / account closure | Microsoft generally does not grant others access to a deceased person’s account, but a next of kin can request that the account be closed. Policies vary by region. |
| Password managers | Emergency access / digital inheritance | Many major password managers let you invite a trusted contact who can request access after a waiting period you set, unlocking the vault of stored logins. |
A few patterns stand out. Apple and Google are the two that most directly hand over your actual data, which matters because they often hold your photos, documents, and email. Facebook and Instagram focus on preserving or removing a public memory rather than transferring content. Microsoft leans toward closing rather than sharing. Knowing these differences helps you decide which accounts need extra planning.
What happens to a password manager when you die?
A password manager is designed to be useless to anyone without your master password, and that protection does not lift automatically when you die. If no plan exists, your family may be locked out of every login it held, and with it, the keys to dozens of other accounts.
The good news is that most major password managers include an emergency access or digital inheritance feature. You invite a trusted person, set a waiting period, and if you become unavailable and do not decline their request within that window, they gain access to your vault. Set this up now, while it is a five-minute task rather than a crisis. Two rules matter: never write your master password into an unsecured note, text, or email, and never share it casually. The emergency access feature exists precisely so you never have to.
Are digital accounts part of your estate?
Some are, and some are not, which is why this question causes so much confusion. Anything with clear monetary value tends to be an estate asset: money in payment apps, cryptocurrency, domain names you own, valuable online businesses, and cash-value online accounts. These can pass to your heirs like other property, and your executor may need to account for them.
Other accounts are licenses rather than owned property. Your email, streaming subscriptions, and social profiles are usually rights to use a service that end at death, so they may not transfer the way a bank account does. That said, the contents can still matter enormously. Family photos in a cloud library, documents in your email, and years of writing all carry value that has nothing to do with money. Listing these accounts in your estate plan, and naming who should handle them, keeps them from being lost in the gap between “asset” and “license.”
How do I make a digital estate plan?
A digital estate plan does not need to be complicated. It needs to be current, findable, and specific enough that someone else could act on it. Work through these steps at whatever pace feels manageable.
- Inventory your accounts. Make a list of the accounts that matter: email, banking and payment apps, cloud photo and file storage, social media, subscriptions, cryptocurrency, and any online business or domain. You do not need to record every login for every trivial site. Focus on the accounts that hold money, memories, or the keys to other things.
- Designate legacy contacts where the platform offers them. Set up your Apple Legacy Contact, Google Inactive Account Manager, and Facebook legacy contact now. These are the strongest tools available because they are built and honored by the providers themselves.
- Store access securely. Use a password manager for logins and turn on its emergency access feature for a trusted person. Keep your written instructions in a safe, private place, not in a plain document titled “passwords” on your desktop. The goal is access for the right person, not exposure to everyone.
- Name a digital executor. Decide who will carry out your digital wishes. This can be the same person as your estate executor or someone more comfortable with technology. Tell them the role exists and where your instructions live. A plan no one knows about helps no one.
- Note it in your will. Reference your digital assets and your digital executor in your will or estate documents, and align them with the beneficiary settings on individual accounts. Avoid writing actual passwords into a will, since wills can become public record during probate. Point to where the secure instructions are kept instead.
If you are already gathering documents for a loved one who has passed, our guide on documents needed after death covers the certificates and paperwork you will need alongside these digital accounts.
Where to keep your digital estate plan
An inventory only helps if the right person can find it at the right moment. Many families keep a single secure place for the essentials: the list of important accounts, the location of legacy-contact settings, insurance and legal documents, and a note on who to call. The point is to have it organized before anyone needs it, not scattered across drawers, inboxes, and memory.
LifeVault was built for this kind of quiet preparation. It gives you a private place on your iPhone to keep an organized record of important accounts, documents, and contacts for the people and home you love. Everything stays on your device, with nothing uploaded to a server unless you choose to export and share it. LifeVault does not store the passwords for your other online services or log into them for you. What it does is give you one calm, private place to note what exists and where the keys are kept, so the person you trust is not starting from zero.
A short, human checklist
You do not have to do all of this in one sitting. If you only have twenty minutes today, start here:
- Set up your Apple Legacy Contact and Google Inactive Account Manager.
- Turn on emergency access in your password manager for one trusted person.
- Write down, in a secure spot, the five accounts your family would most need: your primary email, main bank, phone carrier, cloud photo library, and any payment app.
- Tell one person that a plan exists and where to find it.
Planning your digital legacy is not morbid, and it is not only for the wealthy or the elderly. It is a practical kindness. The people who will one day sort through your accounts are the people you love most, and a little clarity now saves them from doing that work while they grieve. A short list, a few legacy contacts, and one honest conversation can make an enormous difference.