What Happens to Your Online Accounts When You Die?
Matthew Leo · Published August 2, 2026 · Software & Apps
Your family does not automatically inherit the ability to unlock your phone, open your email or recover photographs stored inside an online account.
Technology companies treat those accounts as private even after a customer dies. That protects users from casual access, but it can leave relatives facing support forms, legal documents and security systems designed to keep everyone—including them—out.
The best time to solve that problem is while the account owner can still choose what should be shared and with whom.
A digital legacy is more than a password list
A useful digital-estate plan identifies important accounts, explains what should happen to them and uses each provider’s official legacy tools where available.
It should cover:
Personal photographs and videos
Email and cloud documents
Domain names and websites
Paid subscriptions
Social-media profiles
Business records and customer accounts
Password-manager recovery information
Devices protected by encryption and passcodes
Do not place ordinary passwords directly in a will. Probate documents may become accessible beyond the trusted people who need the credentials, and a changed password can make the document obsolete.
Use provider tools, a reputable password manager’s emergency-access feature when available, and a separate inventory explaining where recovery information is stored.
Set up Apple Legacy Contact
Apple Legacy Contact lets an account holder nominate one or more people to request access to certain Apple Account data. Supported information may include photographs, messages, notes, files and device backups.
It does not provide everything. Apple excludes purchased films, music, books and subscriptions, along with information stored in iCloud Keychain such as passwords, passkeys and payment details.
On an iPhone or iPad running iOS or iPadOS 15.2 or later:
Open Settings.
Tap your name.
Tap Sign-In & Security.
Tap Legacy Contact.
Tap Add Legacy Contact.
Choose the trusted person and share the access key.
The contact does not need to own an Apple device. They will need the access key and the account holder’s death certificate when requesting access.
Confirm that the person received the key. Apple allows it to be shared digitally or printed and stored with estate documents.
Tell Google what to do after inactivity
Google uses a different approach. Inactive Account Manager can notify trusted contacts or share selected account data after a chosen period of inactivity.
The account holder can choose up to ten people and decide which data each person receives. One contact might receive photographs and Drive files, while another receives information needed to manage a YouTube channel or business archive.
Google evaluates several activity signals, including account sign-ins, Gmail use, Android activity and other actions performed while signed in. The plan is triggered only after the selected inactivity period is reached.
This setting matters because Google reserves the right to delete a personal account after at least two years of inactivity. It sends warnings to the account and any recovery address before deletion, and several exceptions apply, but an unplanned account should not be treated as permanent storage.
Review Inactive Account Manager after changing a phone number, recovery email or trusted contact. A carefully prepared message is not helpful if it is sent to an address nobody uses anymore.
Microsoft now offers OneDrive Digital legacy
OneDrive Digital legacy allows an account holder to grant a trusted person read-only access to OneDrive files and photographs. Without advance setup, Microsoft says it is generally unable to provide account information to someone who is not the account holder.
The process requires both people to participate:
The account holder opens OneDrive settings and selects Digital legacy.
They invite a trusted contact.
The contact signs in with a Microsoft account and accepts.
The account holder generates and securely shares an access code.
When needed, the contact requests access using that code.
Microsoft applies a 72-hour waiting period before access opens.
The access is read-only, which is a sensible limit. A trusted contact can preserve files without immediately receiving complete control of the original Microsoft account.
Provider access does not replace a backup
A legacy contact is still dependent on the provider, the account’s condition and the information the service permits them to retrieve. Important family photographs or business records should not exist only inside one online account.
Keep a separate, encrypted backup and test it periodically. Mapletechie’s backup guide explains how to combine cloud storage with an offline external drive.
The backup also gives the account holder more control. A carefully organized archive can contain the records intended for family without exposing years of private email, conversations and unrelated account data.
Make a digital account inventory
The inventory does not need to contain passwords. It should tell a trusted person what exists and what outcome is intended.
Include the location of access keys, backup codes and legal documents. Store the inventory somewhere the intended person knows exists but strangers cannot casually open.
Password managers need their own recovery plan
A password manager may contain the keys to almost everything else. Review whether the service offers emergency access, trusted contacts or a recovery kit, and understand exactly what the chosen person will receive.
Mapletechie’s password-manager comparison explains why the vault account deserves strong authentication and a deliberate recovery process.
Do not weaken the primary password simply to make future access easier. The plan should preserve security while the owner is alive and provide a controlled route afterward.
Review the plan once a year
People change email providers, relationships, phones and financial services. A digital legacy created once and forgotten can direct sensitive information to the wrong person several years later.
Review:
Legacy and trusted-contact names
Recovery email addresses and telephone numbers
Printed access keys and backup codes
Important cloud folders and local backups
Domain renewals and business accounts
Instructions for memorializing or deleting profiles
Provincial estate law and provider terms can affect what an executor or family member may access. A lawyer can help when valuable intellectual property, business systems or disputed family relationships are involved.
The technical part, however, can begin today. Choose the contacts, share the keys and leave an inventory that explains what matters. Grief is already difficult enough.
Tags: digital legacy, online accounts, Apple, Google, Microsoft