Digital legacy: how to decide what happens to your accounts after death or long silence

The most personal things people leave behind now sit inside their accounts: years of photos, conversations, documents. If nobody knows the password, all of it quietly disappears one day. If everybody knows it, the account was never private in the first place.

Google, Apple and Facebook offer a middle path you set up in advance: someone you trust gets access only after a death is documented, or after the account has gone silent for a period you choose, and only to the data you ticked. Instagram and WhatsApp have no such setting, so there the preparation is making sure your family knows what to do.

This guide walks through today's screens on all five: where to click, how many people you can name, what transfers and what never does. It is one sitting now, and a yearly check afterwards.

1. Make a list of your accounts and fix the recovery details On paper or in your password manager, list every account that holds photos, messages or documents: Google, Apple, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, email, cloud storage. Then check that the recovery email address and phone number on each one are still yours. Do not skip this: every legacy tool below relies on those two details to warn you and to verify the other person. A number you gave up years ago means the plan either never fires or reaches the wrong hands.
2. Open Inactive Account Manager in your Google Account Go to myaccount.google.com, open the "Data & privacy" tab in the left menu, and scroll to the extra options near the bottom to find "Inactive Account Manager"; the direct address is myaccount.google.com/inactive. Press the button to start your plan. Google judges whether the account is still in use from your last sign-ins, your My Activity record, Gmail usage and Android device check-ins.
3. Set the waiting period and your warning details On the first screen, choose how many months of silence should count as inactivity; the choice runs from 3 up to 18 months. Just below that, enter the phone number and a second, recovery email address Google should use to reach you as the deadline approaches. That warning is your only safety net: it is what stops the plan from firing during a long trip, a hospital stay or a phone change.
4. Add your trusted contacts and pick what each one gets Add up to 10 people. For each one, enter an email address and a phone number; Google uses the number only to confirm that the person downloading the data really is them, so someone who intercepts the email cannot reach your files. Then tick which data that person inherits: Drive, Gmail, Photos, YouTube, Contacts and so on can be selected individually, and you can leave different data to different people. You can also add someone with no data at all, so they are simply told the account has gone quiet.
5. Write the Gmail auto-reply and decide about deletion On the next screen, write the subject and body of the automatic reply that goes out to anyone who emails you after the account turns inactive; you can limit it to addresses in your contacts. At the end, Google asks whether the whole account should be deleted. If you say yes, Gmail, Drive and Photos go, along with public content such as your YouTube videos and Blogger posts, so make sure your trusted contacts are set up before you tick that box. Save the settings to switch the plan on.
6. Add a Legacy Contact to your Apple Account On iPhone or iPad, open Settings, tap your name at the top, then go to "Sign-In & Security" and tap "Legacy Contact" followed by "Add Legacy Contact". On a Mac the same path is System Settings, your name, "Sign-In & Security", "Legacy Contact". After you authenticate, pick someone from your Family Sharing group or use the option to choose someone else from your contacts. The feature arrived with iOS 15.2, iPadOS 15.2 and macOS Monterey 12.1, so update first if your device is older.
7. Get the Apple access key into their hands Apple generates an access key tied to that person. Send it over iMessage and it is stored automatically in their own Apple Account settings; or choose to print a copy and file it with your will and other papers. When you die, your legacy contact applies at digital-legacy.apple.com with that key and your death certificate, though the required document varies by country. Once access is granted they can retrieve photos, messages, notes, files and device backups. Films, music, books and subscriptions you bought, along with passwords and payment details held in iCloud Keychain, are not passed on.
8. Choose a Facebook legacy contact, or ask for deletion instead Tap your profile picture, then follow "Settings & privacy", "Settings", "Accounts Centre", "Account ownership and control" and the memorialisation settings, and select your account. Type a friend's name, click their profile, then decide whether they may download an archive of what you shared, and save; you can let them know if you want. A legacy contact cannot log in as you or read your private messages. They can pin a tribute post to the top of your profile, change the profile and cover photo, and handle new friend requests. If you would rather have no legacy contact, tick the option on the same screen to have the account deleted after death. You must be 18 or over to name one.
9. Tell your family what to do about Instagram Instagram has no way to name anyone in advance, so the only preparation here is passing on the knowledge. The account can be memorialised only after you die, when someone close submits proof such as a link to an obituary or news report: the word remembering appears next to your name, your posts stay visible under their original privacy settings, the account stops surfacing in places like Explore, and nobody can log in. Only verified immediate family can ask for the account to be removed altogether, by supplying a birth certificate, a death certificate or proof that they are the lawful representative of the estate. Explain both routes to your family now, and say which one you want.
10. Note that deleting the account is the only option on WhatsApp WhatsApp has no legacy contact either, and it does not take requests to close someone else's account, so deletion is all that is left. If the phone can still be unlocked, the route on Android is the three-dot menu, Settings, Account, then the delete-account step; on iPhone it is Settings in the bottom bar, Account, then the same step. The phone number is typed in full international format and confirmed. It cannot be undone, and it only works from the primary device. Deleting removes the message history, the account from every device, and the person from all their groups. Left untouched, WhatsApp eventually deletes unused accounts on its own, generally after 120 days, or 365 days in the US.

⚠ This guide is general information. Yudum cannot be held responsible for the outcome of following it; for official procedures always rely on the institution's own statement. Steps and fees change over time.

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