Most of us have a digital life — accounts, photographs, messages, subscriptions and documents — that will outlast us unless someone takes deliberate steps to manage it. For many people, their most important photographs now exist only in cloud storage. Their email inbox contains years of correspondence. Their social media profiles are active records of a life. Planning what should happen to all of this is increasingly a part of sensible end-of-life preparation.
What happens to social media accounts
Different platforms handle accounts after a user’s death in different ways:
- Facebook — allows accounts to be memorialised (frozen, with existing content preserved but no new activity) or permanently removed. Account holders can designate a Legacy Contact in their settings — someone who can pin a tribute post, respond to new friend requests, and download an archive of the account’s data. Setting this up takes two minutes and is worth doing.
- Instagram — accounts can be memorialised on request from a family member, preventing anyone from tagging or impersonating the account after death. Instagram does not currently allow a legacy contact to post on a memorialised account.
- X (formerly Twitter) — will remove an account on submission of a death certificate and official documentation from the next of kin. There is no memorialisation option.
- LinkedIn — can be removed by a family member who submits a removal request with a death certificate. LinkedIn does not memorialise accounts.
Photographs and cloud storage
This is the area where most families encounter the greatest difficulty. Photographs stored in Apple iCloud, Google Photos or Amazon Photos may be inaccessible after a death unless the family knows the password or has been given access in advance.
Apple’s Digital Legacy feature — available in iOS 15.2 and later — allows account holders to designate up to five Legacy Contacts who can request access to the account after the holder’s death. Google offers an Inactive Account Manager, which can be configured to share specific data with a trusted person if the account has been inactive for a set period. Both are worth setting up if you have photographs you want to be sure will reach your family.
What to think about for your own digital legacy
The most practical step is to write down what you have and what you want to happen to it. Not passwords — these should be stored securely, not written in a document — but a map: the accounts that exist, what they contain, and your wishes for each. Some questions worth working through:
- Which accounts contain things that matter — photographs, documents, messages?
- Which social media accounts do you want closed, and which memorialised?
- Are there digital purchases — books, music, films — that you would like to pass on? (Note that most digital purchases are licensed, not owned, and cannot legally be inherited.)
- Does a trusted family member know where your passwords are stored?
- Have you set up a Legacy Contact on Facebook and Apple, and an Inactive Account Manager on Google?
A sealed letter of digital wishes, held by a solicitor alongside your will, is the most reliable way to ensure your intentions are acted on. A will is often not read until after the funeral has already taken place — a letter of wishes held separately, and known about by a family member, can be acted on far more quickly.
The limits of digital accounts
Platforms change, merge, restructure their terms, and close. An account that exists today may not be accessible in the same form in twenty years. Photographs stored only in the cloud are dependent on a commercial relationship that may not last as long as the photographs themselves matter.
A printed photograph, an order of service, a memorial card — these exist independently of any technology and can be passed between generations without requiring a password or a subscription. Many families find, in the long run, that the physical objects from a life mean more than the digital ones. Planning for both is not excessive; it is simply thorough.
A note on passwords
Passwords are the practical obstacle that trips up most families trying to access a loved one’s accounts. They should never be written into a will — wills become public documents on probate, making any passwords in them publicly accessible.
The most reliable approach is a password manager such as 1Password, Bitwarden or LastPass, which stores all passwords behind a single master password. The account holder shares the master password — or a printed recovery key — with a trusted person and stores it securely. This gives access to everything in one step.
The alternative is a sealed handwritten note held by a solicitor alongside a letter of digital wishes. Less elegant, but entirely workable. The goal in either case is not to hand over access now, but to ensure the right person can gain it without months of difficulty at an already painful time.
You might also find our articles on creating an online memorial and pre-planning a funeral useful as you think through these questions.
