What happens to your social media accounts when you die?

It depends on the platform. Facebook and Instagram can memorialize accounts — turning them into tribute pages — if a family member requests it. Without a request or legacy contact designation, accounts often remain active indefinitely. Twitter/X and LinkedIn allow family to request removal with a death certificate. None of these platforms will give family members login access. See our full platform-by-platform social media guide for exact steps.

Can your family access your digital accounts after you die?

Not automatically, and not legally without proper planning. Platforms' terms of service prohibit account sharing, even after death. Exceptions: Apple has a Legacy Contact feature, Google has Inactive Account Manager, and Facebook allows a designated Legacy Contact. Without these, families typically cannot access your email, photos, or cloud storage.

How do I set up Google's Inactive Account Manager?

Go to myaccount.google.com and search for "Inactive Account Manager." You can set a timeout period (3, 6, 12, or 18 months of inactivity), choose trusted contacts who receive access to specific data when the timeout is reached, and optionally schedule automatic account deletion. Setting this up takes about 10 minutes and is one of the most valuable digital legacy steps you can take.

What should I do with my cryptocurrency before I die?

This is urgent: cryptocurrency is permanently inaccessible without the private key or seed phrase. Store your seed phrase in a secure physical location (a fireproof safe or safety deposit box) — not digitally. Leave detailed written instructions for how a trusted person can access your wallets. Tell your executor this information exists. Estimates suggest $100+ billion in Bitcoin is permanently lost because owners died without passing on access.

What is a digital estate plan?

A digital estate plan is a document (or set of documents) that inventories your online accounts, explains how to access or close each one, and states your wishes for what should happen to each after you die. It complements a traditional will. It should not contain raw passwords — instead, it should explain how to find them (e.g., which password manager you use and how to request emergency access).

Digital Legacy Planning: What Happens to Your Online Accounts When You Die

Most estate planning guides focus on physical assets: property, bank accounts, insurance. But for most people alive today, a significant portion of their life exists online — emails, photos, social media histories, cloud storage, subscriptions, and sometimes significant financial assets like cryptocurrency.

Without a plan, that digital life becomes a tangle that families have to unravel at the worst possible time.

What Is a Digital Legacy?

Your digital legacy includes every online account and digital asset you own or maintain:

Email accounts
Social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, TikTok)
Cloud storage (Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive)
Photo collections (Google Photos, iCloud Photos, Flickr)
Streaming subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify, Amazon)
Online banking and investment accounts
Cryptocurrency wallets
Domain names and websites
E-commerce accounts (Amazon, eBay, Etsy)
Online gaming accounts (which can have real monetary value)
Password managers

What Happens to Your Accounts When You Die?

The answer depends on the platform — and it varies widely:

Facebook / Meta

Facebook allows you to designate a "Legacy Contact" who can manage your memorialized profile. Without this, your account will either be memorialized or removed depending on what a family member requests. Facebook will not give family members access to the account itself — but they can request a download of your data.

Google

Google has an "Inactive Account Manager" that lets you choose what happens to your account if it goes inactive. You can give trusted contacts access, or schedule automatic deletion. Without this, your family will likely not be able to access your Gmail, Google Photos, or Google Drive.

Apple / iCloud

Apple has a Legacy Contact feature (added in iOS 15.2) that lets you designate someone to access your iCloud data after death. Without it, Apple does not grant family members access to iCloud accounts — even with a death certificate.

Banks and Financial Accounts

Online bank accounts are part of your estate. They require a court order or letters testamentary to access. This is why beneficiary designations are so important — they allow direct transfer outside of probate.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is uniquely dangerous from a legacy standpoint. If no one knows your wallet private keys or seed phrase, the cryptocurrency is permanently inaccessible. Estimates suggest 20% of all Bitcoin — worth hundreds of billions of dollars — is permanently locked in wallets whose owners died without passing on access information.

The Password Problem

Most families discover the digital estate problem when they realize they can't access anything. Your spouse can't get to the family photos in iCloud. Your children don't know what accounts you have. The bank wants a court order.

The solution is intentional preparation — not writing raw passwords in a document (a security risk), but creating a clear map of what accounts exist and how your family can access them:

What password manager you use and how to request emergency access
Which accounts are critical and which can be canceled
Where crypto wallets and seed phrases are stored
How to access your email (critical for password resets on other accounts)

Social Media: Memorialize or Delete?

There's no single right answer. Some families find comfort in a memorialized profile — it becomes a place to share memories and connect around grief. Others find it unsettling to see a loved one's profile still active.

Make your preference known. Common options include:

Memorialize (Facebook, Instagram): Converts your profile to a memorial, prevents new logins, preserves posts.
Delete: Remove the account entirely.
Download and delete: Download your archive first, then delete. This preserves your data without keeping a public presence.

Building Your Digital Legacy Plan

Start with these five steps:

Take inventory. List every significant account you have — social, financial, cloud storage, subscriptions.
Set up platform legacy tools. Enable Google's Inactive Account Manager, Facebook's Legacy Contact, Apple's Legacy Contact.
Document access instructions. Not raw passwords — but enough guidance that a trusted person could find them.
Document cryptocurrency. If you hold crypto, this is urgent. Someone you trust must have access to your seed phrase or wallet instructions.
Tell someone. Your executor, your spouse, or a trusted person needs to know that this information exists and where to find it.

How FinalKeepSake Helps

The Legacy Vault is designed exactly for this: a private, secure place to store instructions, guidance, and notes about your digital accounts — not raw passwords, but the map your family needs. Combined with the Legacy Handoff Package, your family gets everything organized in one place, accessible when they need it most.

Start your legacy profile — it takes about 10 minutes to complete the most important parts.