How to leave access to your digital accounts

When someone dies today, the hardest problems are rarely legal. They are digital. Photos on a locked phone. Two-factor codes going to a disconnected SIM. Subscriptions charging a frozen credit card. You cannot solve all of it in advance, but you can solve most of it in an afternoon.

Start with the accounts that carry the most

• Your primary email, because it resets everything else.
• Your phone and its cloud backup, because it holds photos and 2FA codes.
• Your password manager, because it is the master key.
• Your banking and payment apps.
• Your social media, so your family can memorialise or close it.
• Any subscriptions charging a card.

Use the tools each provider already offers

Apple

Add a Legacy Contact under Settings, your name, Sign-In & Security. Your contact receives an access key and can request your data with a death certificate. No password sharing required.

Google

Set up an Inactive Account Manager. You choose how long the account can be idle, and who gets notified and given access to specific services when that timer runs out.

Facebook

Nominate a Legacy Contact under Settings, General, Memorialisation Settings. They can manage a memorialised profile without logging in.

Microsoft

Microsoft has no legacy contact system. Your executor can apply for the Next of Kin process with a death certificate and proof of executorship, but access is limited.

Use a password manager, not a spreadsheet

A password manager such as 1Password, Bitwarden, or Dashlane holds every login behind one master password. Emergency access features let a nominated person request access after a waiting period, without you ever telling them the master password. This is far safer than a document listing every password in plain text.

Record the map, not the keys

In your family workbook, record where each account lives, not the password itself. Which email provider, which bank, which password manager. Your family only needs enough to find the accounts. The legal access comes through legacy contacts, the password manager, or the courts.

Cancel what would embarrass you

Nothing is worse than a family cancelling a parent's subscriptions and discovering things they wish they had not. A short audit now, followed by a note on which accounts to close immediately, is a small kindness with a big payoff.