Plan Your Digital Legacy
Your photos, emails, documents, and accounts live behind passwords only you know. If something happened to you tomorrow, your family would face a locked digital life on top of everything else. A digital legacy plan — a list of accounts, a designated contact, and clear instructions — takes an afternoon and spares them months of frustration. Here is the complete, non-morbid walkthrough.
TL;DR / Quick Fix
Quick fix: a digital legacy plan lists your important accounts, names a trusted person, and stores instructions where they will be found. Use Apple's Legacy Contact and Google's Inactive Account Manager, keep one master list, and tell your person where it is. An afternoon's work saves months of frustration.
Follow these steps
- List your important accounts. Email, cloud storage, banking, social media, subscriptions, crypto — everything someone would need to find or close. Do not write passwords in this list; note which password manager holds them.
- Set up Apple's Legacy Contact. On iPhone: Settings > your name > Sign-In & Security > Legacy Contact. Your designee gets access to your iCloud data after verification — the Legacy Contact setup guide walks through it.
- Set up Google's Inactive Account Manager. Google lets you name a trusted contact who gets access after a period of inactivity you choose. It covers Gmail, Photos, and Drive — the other half of most people's digital lives.
- Name a digital executor in your will. The tech tools handle Apple and Google; a will handles everything else. Name one person, give them authority over digital assets, and keep the will where they will find it.
- Store the instructions in one findable place. A sealed envelope with your lawyer, a fireproof safe, or a password manager's emergency access — pick one, and TELL the person where it is. A perfect plan nobody can find is no plan.
- Review it yearly. Accounts come and go; legacy contacts change phones. A ten-minute annual review — same day as your backup check — keeps the plan real.
What NOT to do
- Do not put raw passwords in the plan document. Point to the password manager instead — a list of passwords in a drawer is a burglary jackpot.
- Do not assume your family can just call Apple. Without a Legacy Contact set up in advance, even close relatives face a long verification process — see what happens without one.
- Do not make it a secret. The plan only works if your designated person knows it exists and where to find it — tell them directly.
- Do not forget the money accounts. Crypto wallets, payment apps, investment accounts — financial accounts are the ones where delay costs real money.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Legacy Contact and a will?
Legacy Contact is Apple's built-in tool for iCloud data access; a will is the legal document covering everything else. You want both — they handle different halves.
Can my legacy contact read my messages?
Apple's Legacy Contact grants access to iCloud data including photos and files. Payment info and some licensed media are excluded — it is broad but not total.
What if I do not do any of this?
Your accounts sit in limbo — subscriptions keep charging, photos stay locked, and your family navigates each company's bereavement process one by one. An afternoon now prevents all of it.