What Happens to Your Digital Accounts When You Die?

Most people spend years building a digital life — online banking, email, social media, photo storage, subscription services, and more. But very few people have made any plan for what happens to those accounts when they die. For executors, this oversight can create serious practical and legal headaches. Understanding the issue now can save your family significant time and frustration later.

The Scope of the Problem

Think about how many online accounts you have. There is your email — possibly multiple accounts. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Online banking and investment accounts. Streaming services like Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime. Cloud storage such as Google Photos, iCloud, or Dropbox, where years of family photos may be stored. Password managers. Loyalty programs with accumulated points. PayPal or e-transfer accounts that may hold a balance. Domain names or websites you own. Cryptocurrency wallets.

Each of these accounts is governed by its own terms of service, and those terms typically do not contemplate death in a straightforward way. Some accounts terminate automatically. Some can be memorialized. Some require a court order to access. And some — particularly cryptocurrency — may be permanently inaccessible if no one knows the passwords or private keys.

What Your Executor Needs

Your executor has a legal obligation to identify, gather, and administer your assets. Digital assets are increasingly part of that picture. But unlike a bank account, which can be located through financial records and accessed with proper legal authority, digital accounts are often invisible to anyone who does not already know they exist.

It is worth being clear about authority: a Power of Attorney terminates automatically on death, and a Personal Directive governs health care decisions during life — neither document gives anyone authority to access digital accounts after death. Only the Executor, acting under the authority of the Will (and, where required, a Grant of Probate), has that legal authority.

To do their job effectively, your executor needs to know:

• What accounts exist
• How to access them (usernames and passwords, or where to find them)
• What to do with each one — close it, transfer it, memorialize it, or preserve it

Without this information, your executor may spend hours trying to locate accounts, notify platforms of your death, and navigate each company’s individual process for dealing with deceased users. Some platforms require death certificates, probate documents, or notarized letters before they will take any action.

Social Media: Memorialization and Deletion

Facebook allows you to designate a “legacy contact” — someone who can manage your memorialized profile after your death. Alternatively, you can instruct Facebook in advance to delete your account entirely. Without either instruction, your account will simply remain active until someone notifies Facebook and requests memorialization or removal.

Instagram, which is owned by Meta, has a similar memorialization process but does not currently offer a legacy contact feature. A family member can request memorialization or removal by submitting proof of death.

Google offers an “Inactive Account Manager” tool that allows you to specify what happens to your Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube, and other Google services if your account becomes inactive for a set period. You can designate trusted contacts to receive data and instruct Google to delete the account after a specified time.

Apple’s Digital Legacy program, introduced in 2021, allows you to designate legacy contacts who can request access to your iCloud data — including photos, messages, notes, and documents — after your death.

The key point is that most major platforms have processes available, but they require advance planning. Without prior instructions, your family will face a patchwork of company-by-company procedures.

Financial and Cryptocurrency Accounts

Online bank accounts and investment platforms are generally accessible to an executor with proper legal authority — a death certificate and probate documentation, or letters probate issued by the court. These accounts are regulated and have established procedures.

Cryptocurrency is a different matter. If you hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other digital currency, and your private keys or seed phrases are not recorded anywhere accessible to your executor, that value may be permanently lost. No company holds your cryptocurrency on your behalf in the traditional sense — it exists on the blockchain, and access depends entirely on possessing the correct credentials. There is no password reset and no customer service department that can help.

If you hold any meaningful amount of cryptocurrency, recording your wallet addresses, exchange account details, and private keys or seed phrases in a secure location — and ensuring your executor knows where to find them — is essential.

Subscription Services and Recurring Payments

Many people have subscription services set up on autopay — streaming services, software subscriptions, cloud storage, news sites, and more. These will continue to charge your credit card or bank account after your death until someone cancels them. Your executor should be aware of these charges and cancel them promptly to avoid ongoing fees against the estate.

A review of your monthly credit card statements will typically reveal most active subscriptions. Keeping a simple list updated annually is a practical step your executor will appreciate.

What You Can Do Now

The most practical step is to create a digital inventory — a document that lists your accounts, usernames, and either passwords or instructions for where passwords are stored. This does not need to be stored in your will, and in fact should not be, since wills become public documents through probate. Instead, store it in a secure location and make sure your executor knows where to find it.

Options for storing this information securely include:

• A printed document in a sealed envelope with your will
• A password manager with emergency access instructions
• A dedicated section in an executor information booklet kept with your estate documents

Your will can reference the existence of this document and instruct your executor to locate it, without including the sensitive details in the will itself.

You should also review the legacy and account management settings on your major platforms — Google, Apple, Facebook — and designate contacts or set deletion preferences where available. This takes less than an hour and can save your family significant difficulty.

The Bottom Line

Digital assets are real assets, and your executor needs to be able to find and manage them. A little planning now — a list of accounts, stored passwords, and platform legacy settings — can prevent your family from losing irreplaceable photos, missing financial accounts, or paying ongoing subscription fees for years after your death.

If you are making or updating your will, take the opportunity to also create a basic digital inventory. It is one of the most practical gifts you can leave your executor.