Written by G.D. Hart · GuardDoc.tech · Download. Fill in. Save. Edit. Print. Share. It’s yours forever.
START HERE.
If you only do one thing, make a list of your primary email accounts, financial accounts, cloud storage, phone service, and anything that would cause a real problem if nobody could access it. Then tell one trusted person where that list is kept.
Do not put live passwords, recovery codes, private keys, or seed phrases in an ordinary document. Use a reputable password manager for credentials. Your plan should explain what exists, who should act, and where secure access instructions are held.
WHAT IS A DIGITAL ESTATE?
Your digital estate is the online part of your life: accounts, files, subscriptions, payments, devices, online property, and digital records that may need to be preserved, transferred, managed, or closed.
Some things have financial value. Others have practical value. Some are simply irreplaceable: family photographs, messages, notes, email, and files that may exist nowhere else.
The aim is not to give somebody a universal key to everything. It is to reduce guesswork. A good plan tells the right person what exists, what matters, what should happen next, and where lawful access may be available.
Primary email accounts
Begin with your primary email accounts. Email is often the recovery route for banking, shopping, cloud storage, social media, and many other services.
Then record the accounts that keep your household functioning:
- Primary email accounts
- Mobile-phone account and phone number
- Banking, credit-card, investment, and payment accounts
- Mortgage, rent, utilities, insurance, and tax accounts
- Cloud storage and photo libraries
- Password manager
- Important work, business, domain, or website accounts
- Cryptocurrency or other digital financial assets, if applicable
You do not need to record every streaming subscription on day one. Start with the accounts that would create the biggest problem if nobody knew they existed.
Decide what should happen to each account.
For each important account, choose one of four simple instructions:
- Preserve — keep it and protect its contents, such as photo libraries, personal email, or important cloud files
- Transfer — move it to the appropriate person, such as a domain name, website, business account, or household service
- Close — cancel it when it is no longer needed, such as unused subscriptions or memberships
- Review first — let the trusted person decide after checking your notes, particularly for accounts with financial, legal, or sentimental value
This is more useful than a giant list of passwords. It tells someone what you wanted, not just what you had.
Several major services offer their own planning tools. Set them up while you can, then make a note of what you chose.
Apple: You can name a Legacy Contact, who may request access to certain Apple-account data after your death. Apple’s process requires the access key you create and a death certificate.
digital-legacy.apple
Google: Inactive Account Manager lets you choose a period of inactivity, nominate trusted contacts, and decide which Google data they may receive. The inactivity window can be set from 3 to 18 months.
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Facebook and Instagram: Meta provides memorialisation and account-management options, including a legacy-contact setting for Facebook. A legacy contact can manage limited aspects of a memorialised profile; it does not give them permission to log in as you or read your private messages.
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Platform tools are useful, but they are not a complete plan. They do not automatically cover your bank, password manager, domains, subscriptions, devices, or records stored elsewhere.
Choose one or two people who can be trusted to follow your instructions calmly. They may be the same person who serves as executor under your will, but they do not have to be. You can leave this information with your family attorney as well.
- What matters is that they:
- Know that you have created a plan
- Know where to find it
- Can handle sensitive information responsibly
- Understand that access to an account is not always the same as legal authority to manage it
- Are willing to ask for legal or technical help when they need it
“Digital executor” is a useful planning term, but it is not a universal legal title. Authority depends on your estate documents, your state’s law, and the rules of each company or platform. If you need someone to manage assets after death or incapacity, speak to an estate-planning attorney about documenting authority properly.
A plan without a secure access route leaves people stuck. But writing all your passwords in a PDF, a notebook, or a will creates another risk.
Use a reputable password manager for passwords, passkeys, recovery codes, and other live credentials. Where available, set up an emergency-access or trusted-contact feature. Some password managers allow a named person to request access after a waiting period.
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- Your Household Digital Continuity Plan should record:
- Which password manager you use
- The account email associated with it
- Whether emergency access has been configured
- Who can request access
- Where you store recovery instructions
- The location of any device, hardware key, or backup needed for access
It should not contain live passwords, recovery codes, private keys, or cryptocurrency seed phrases.
What to write down:
Instruction: Keep this list in a secure place and update it when something important changes.
- Primary email addresses
- Phone number and mobile provider
- Password-manager name and account email
- Cloud-storage services and photo libraries
- Bank, payment, investment, and insurance accounts
- Utility, mortgage, rent, and household-service accounts
- Important subscriptions and automatic payments
- Devices used for account recovery
- Trusted contact or intended digital representative
- Location of your will, power of attorney, and other authority documents
- Platform legacy-contact or inactive-account settings
- Websites, domains, online businesses, and social-media accounts
- Important digital files and where they are stored
- Cryptocurrency or other digital financial assets, if applicable
- What should be preserved, transferred, closed, or reviewed
- Your next review date
Most people can make a first version of this list in under an hour. It does not need to be perfect. It needs to exist.
You can make this plan with a notebook and the checklist above. The Household Digital Continuity Plan simply gives you a place for each part.
It is an eight-document set of fillable PDFs for recording account recovery, devices and backups, digital assets, recurring obligations, insurance, important documents, trusted contacts, and review notes.
Keep it secure: These documents may point to sensitive accounts and records. Store them in a protected location and share them only with people you trust. Use a password manager for live passwords, recovery codes, private keys, and seed phrases.
FAQ
Q: Can my family just use my passwords after I die?
Not necessarily. A password may provide technical access, but companies may have their own rules about account access, privacy, and transfer after death. Some services require a death certificate, proof of authority, or use of their own legacy-contact process. Planning ahead is more reliable than assuming a password will solve everything.
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Q: Should I put my passwords in my will?
No. Wills may become public during probate, and they are not a secure place for live passwords, recovery codes, private keys, or seed phrases. Use a password manager and record where trusted people can find lawful emergency-access instructions.
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Q: Do I need a separate digital executor?
Not always. Your regular executor may be the right person. Choose a separate person only if someone else is more trustworthy, available, or comfortable with technology. The important point is to record your wishes and make sure legal authority is addressed in your estate documents where needed.
Q: What happens to my Apple account?
If you set up an Apple Legacy Contact in advance, that person can request access to eligible data after your death using the access key and a death certificate. Apple reviews the request and its process does not grant access to everything, including Keychain passwords and payment methods.
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Q: What happens to my Google account?
Google’s Inactive Account Manager can notify trusted contacts and share selected data after the period of inactivity you set. You can choose the inactivity period and which data each person receives.
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Q: How often should I update my plan?
Review it once each year and after any major change: a new primary email, new phone number, changed password manager, new insurance, moved cloud storage, closed financial account, new website, or change in the person you trust to help.
LAST REVIEWED
Last reviewed: September 2026 · General information only; not legal, financial, or cybersecurity advice. Account-access rules, estate-planning law, and platform features vary by jurisdiction and provider. Speak with an estate-planning attorney for advice about your situation.
Sources
Apple, “Digital Legacy”
https://digital-legacy.apple.com/digital-legacy.apple
Federal Trade Commission, “What to do with someone’s online accounts after they die”
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-do-someones-online-accounts-after-they-die
Google Inactive Account Manager
https://myaccount.google.com/inactivemakingsenseofsecurity+1
Hub update
Once this guide is published:
- Go back to the Household Digital hub.
- Turn item 2 into a link:
/learn/household-digital/digital-estate/
- Keep the label:
GUIDE · 7 MIN READ
- Add a “Read next” link on this guide back to:
/learn/household-digital/
This gives you the first live child guide beneath the Household Digital hub.
