Most of us now live a significant part of our lives online. We scroll through social media, upload photos, pay bills through apps, store important documents in the cloud, and send messages to the people we love every day. Yet very few people pause to ask a simple, uncomfortable question: What happens to your online accounts when you die?
Digital legacy planning is the process of deciding what should happen to your digital assets— your online accounts, files, and electronic memories—after your death. It includes obvious things like email and social media, but it also reaches into cloud storage, banking and investment portals, digital wallets, streaming services, shopping accounts, loyalty programs, and even websites or blogs you run. Thoughtful planning can spare your family stress, protect your privacy, and help preserve treasured photos, videos, and messages for years to come.
This guide walks through the basics of digital assets in estate planning, how to think about what happens to social media when you die, and practical ways to share information safely using tools like a password manager and a designated digital executor. It also offers ideas for preserving online memories while guarding against identity theft after death, and shows how your digital plans can sit alongside Funeral.com’s broader end-of-life planning resources, such as Advance Directives and Living Wills: Making Medical Wishes Clear Before the End of Life, The Importance Of Pre-Planning Your Funeral, and Funeral Planning Checklist: What You Need to Know.
What Is a Digital Legacy?
Your digital legacy is the collection of online accounts, data, and digital content that remains after you are gone. For most people, it includes social media profiles such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, X/Twitter, or LinkedIn, along with personal email addresses, cloud storage like Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, or OneDrive, and the many accounts that quietly run in the background of daily life. That might mean online banking and investment dashboards, shopping accounts and subscriptions, digital wallets and payment apps, and websites or domains attached to a side business or personal blog.
Some of these digital assets have clear financial value. Others are mainly emotional. A cloud folder full of family photos, a memorial slideshow stored in your email, a blog where you have written about your life for years, or a handful of saved voicemails with a familiar laugh are all part of your digital legacy. In a complete estate plan, these deserve as much care and attention as your physical property.
Why Digital Legacy Planning Matters
Without clear instructions, your family may find themselves staring at login screens and error messages. They might know that “everything is online” but have no idea which accounts exist, where the important documents are stored, or whether they are even allowed to access them. That uncertainty can lead to very practical problems: subscriptions that continue to auto-renew because no one can log in to cancel them, abandoned profiles that keep receiving messages or spam, or irreplaceable photos and documents locked away behind forgotten passwords.
There is also the quieter risk of identity theft after death. Fraudsters sometimes search obituaries and public records and then try to open accounts or apply for benefits in the name of someone who has recently died. When online accounts remain active and unmonitored, it can be easier for them to cause harm.
A modest amount of digital estate planning changes this picture. If you outline your main accounts and give someone clear authority and a practical roadmap, your family can locate the information they need, protect your privacy, and preserve the memories that matter most. It is the digital counterpart to the way Funeral.com’s Advance Directives and Living Wills guide helps families avoid guesswork about medical decisions. Both are about giving your loved ones clarity, permission, and a plan.
Taking Inventory of Your Digital Life
A good first step in digital legacy planning is simply becoming aware of how many parts of your life depend on logins. When you think through a typical week, you might notice the way you check a personal email account, dip into work email (where policies allow), scroll through several social media apps, stream shows or music, move money between online bank accounts, and store family photos in a cloud backup without a second thought. Each of those touchpoints represents a digital asset that someone will eventually need to manage.
Estate planning professionals now encourage people to treat digital assets in estate planning much like bank or investment accounts. You do not have to create a perfectly exhaustive list, but it helps to note the main categories of accounts you use, the services involved, and which ones truly matter. For many families, a personal email account, primary cloud storage service, main social media profiles, and any accounts attached to money or business activity are the ones that need the most attention.
How Password Managers Support Digital Legacy Planning
In a world where most of us juggle dozens of logins, a password manager is not just a convenience; it can be the backbone of your digital legacy planning. Instead of scattering passwords across notebooks or browser autofill, a password manager stores them in one encrypted vault, secured by a single master password or passphrase.
Many modern password managers now include features designed specifically with legacy in mind, such as “emergency access” or trusted contacts. You can name a person who will be allowed to request access to your vault if something happens to you. After a waiting period or verification step, the service can unlock your vault for that person so they can follow your wishes: closing some accounts, memorializing others, and preserving the information that matters most.
For digital legacy purposes, the goal is not to hand over every password today. Instead, it is to create a safe, up-to-date place where those passwords live and to make sure a trusted person knows how to reach that vault in a crisis. When you revise your other plans—your will, your insurance policies, or your advance directives—you can also confirm that your password manager settings still reflect your wishes. Funeral.com’s Advance Directives and Living Wills and The Importance Of Pre-Planning Your Funeral both underline how much relief families feel when they know where key information is stored. Your password manager is simply the digital version of that same idea.
Social Media, Legacy Contacts, and Memorialization
For many people, social media has become a kind of living scrapbook. That raises a hard but important question: What happens to your social media when you die? Major platforms now acknowledge that this is part of digital legacy planning, and several offer tools to help you decide in advance.
Facebook, for example, allows you to choose between memorializing an account or having it deleted when they are notified of a death. You can name a legacy contact who will be able to manage certain parts of a memorialized profile, such as updating a profile picture, writing a pinned post, or moderating tribute posts, all within specific limits.
Other companies handle things differently. Google’s Inactive Account Manager lets you set a period of inactivity and then specify what should happen to Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos if you stop signing in. Some platforms offer their own memorialization processes, while others will close accounts only after a family member provides documentation. What they have in common is this: most will not simply hand over your password, even with a death certificate, because of privacy and security rules.
As part of your digital legacy planning, it helps to open the settings for each major platform you use and make a conscious choice. You might decide that your Facebook profile should remain as a memorial space where people can share stories, while an old account on another platform can be deleted. You can then note those choices in the same place where you keep your funeral preferences, perhaps alongside guidance informed by How To Plan A Meaningful Funeral Service, which looks at how families want to be remembered in more traditional settings.
Email, Cloud Storage, and the “Master Keys” to Your Accounts
Email and cloud storage often function as the “master keys” of your digital life. Password reset links, billing statements, tax documents, contracts, shared photo albums, and important attachments all pass quietly through your inbox or end up in a folder inside Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, or a similar service. If no one can access these accounts after you die, your legal executor or family may struggle to carry out your wishes—even when they have a perfectly clear written will.
When you think about your digital legacy, it can help to identify which email and cloud accounts truly matter. A personal address used for banking, legal matters, and family communication is likely important; an old newsletter-only address might simply be closed. Similarly, a cloud drive that holds family photos, business records, or scanned documents may need to be accessed and archived, while an empty account can be allowed to expire.
Some people instruct a digital executor to download key documents and photos into a shared family folder or onto an external hard drive, then close or delete the rest. Others prefer their executor to archive almost everything for a period of time and only later decide what to keep. There is no single correct approach. The key is that someone has both the legal authority and practical ability to carry out whatever you decide.
Preserving Photos, Messages, and Online Memories
When families talk about what they miss most after someone dies, they rarely start with bank balances. They talk about images and voices: the photo of a shared vacation, a video of a family toast, a text thread that still makes them laugh, a saved voicemail they play on hard days. In modern life, many of these memories live entirely in digital form.
Part of digital legacy planning is deciding how to protect those memories so they are not lost when a service changes or a device fails. Some people choose a primary home for family photos—perhaps a shared cloud library that a spouse or adult child can access—then make a habit of backing up their phones and social media albums to that location. Others periodically export copies of important text messages or voicemails into formats that can be stored long term.
Some families also choose a tangible complement to those online archives by wearing cremation jewelry for ashes. Pieces from Funeral.com’s Cremation Jewelry and Cremation Necklaces collections—such as the modern Onyx Textured Rectangle, Stainless Steel Cremation Necklace or the layered-circle Bronze Round Hinged Circles, 14K Gold-Plated Cremation Necklace—hold a tiny portion of ashes in a secure inner chamber, so a loved one’s memory can be carried every day, right alongside the photos and messages saved on your phone.
For family members who are less comfortable navigating digital folders, printed photos or simple photo books can still play an important role. This mirrors the way Funeral.com’s memorial and urn guides talk about tangible keepsakes—like beautiful cremation urns for ashes, compact keepsake cremation urns, and wearable memorial jewelry from our Cremation Charms & Pendants and Cremation Bracelets collections—as physical anchors for grief and remembrance. Your digital plan simply ensures that the raw material for those keepsakes is not lost in an old account no one can open.
Guarding Against Identity Theft After Death
Unfortunately, identity theft after death is not rare. Some criminals comb through published obituaries and public databases, searching for newly deceased individuals whose information can be exploited. If online accounts remain open and unmonitored, it can be easier for them to cause financial and emotional harm.
Your digital legacy planning can make things safer. By giving your executor or digital executor a clear picture of which accounts exist and what should be done with them, you make it easier to close or lock down services that store payment information, personal data, or identification numbers. In some cases, your family may choose to work with a financial professional to place a credit freeze or set up monitoring after your death, especially if there is a large online footprint involved. Those decisions are easier when they are made with a written list in hand rather than in a panic.
Choosing a Digital Executor and Navigating the Law
Because our lives are increasingly online, more lawyers and planners now talk about naming a digital executor— someone specifically tasked with handling your digital assets. This might be the same person who serves as the executor of your will, or it might be someone more tech-savvy who works alongside your main executor.
The legal landscape around digital assets in estate planning is still evolving. In many parts of the United States, laws based on the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) explain when and how an executor, trustee, or agent can access digital accounts. These laws generally require you to grant explicit permission in your will, trust, or power of attorney, and they often defer to each company’s terms of service for details.
Because this area can be complex and technical, it is wise to talk with an estate planning attorney about your digital legacy planning. They can help you add appropriate language to your legal documents, coordinate your digital instructions with your advance directives and funeral preferences, and flag any limitations based on the platforms you use. In the same way that Funeral.com’s The Importance Of Pre-Planning Your Funeral and Why Pre-Planning a Funeral Is a Gift to Your Family show how proactive planning eases burdens for loved ones, legal guidance on digital assets does the same thing in the online world.
Where to Store Your Digital Legacy Plan
Once you have gathered your thoughts and documented your wishes, your digital legacy plan needs a home. Many people keep it with their other estate planning documents: a printed copy stored alongside their will, powers of attorney, insurance information, and Funeral.com-inspired funeral pre-planning paperwork in a fireproof safe, file cabinet, or safe deposit box. Others maintain an encrypted digital copy, with clear instructions for a trusted person on how to unlock it.
What matters most is that at least one person knows the plan exists and knows where to find it. It can be as simple as a sentence in your papers: “My digital legacy instructions, including information about my password manager and key accounts, are in the folder labeled ‘Estate’ in my home office.” In an already stressful moment, that kind of clarity can be a gift.
Balancing Privacy and Remembrance Online
One of the most delicate parts of digital legacy planning is deciding how to balance privacy with remembrance. You may want your family to have access to photos, posts, and messages that reflect your love and your life together. At the same time, you may not want every private conversation, early draft, or personal journal entry preserved forever.
As you think this through, it can help to imagine specific people reading specific things. You might picture an adult child looking through a shared photo library and feeling comforted, or a close friend rereading a heartfelt email. Then you might imagine someone stumbling into a private journal entry that was never meant for wider eyes. Your answers to those imagined scenarios can guide you toward which parts of your digital legacy should be preserved and which can be deleted or allowed to fade.
There is no single correct standard. The most important thing is that you have considered the question and left some guidance, instead of asking loved ones to make those choices without a map.
Getting Started: Small Steps That Still Count
Like most end-of-life planning, digital legacy work can feel overwhelming if you look at it all at once. The good news is that small steps still matter. You might begin by simply noticing which accounts feel essential—perhaps your main email, cloud storage, a couple of social media profiles, and any sites connected to money. From there, you can begin using a password manager consistently so those accounts are captured in one secure place, and you can turn on legacy or inactive-account settings for your most-used platforms.
At your next appointment with an estate planning attorney, you can mention your digital assets and ask how to include them in your documents. When you update your funeral preferences—drawing on resources like How To Plan A Meaningful Funeral Service, How to Plan a Funeral in 7 Steps: Honoring a Life with Care, or Cremation vs. Burial: Which Is Right for Your Family?—you can review your digital notes as well, so everything moves forward together.
Each of these steps takes only a little time, but together they help ensure that your online life is wrapped up with the same care, respect, and love you bring to the rest of your planning. Your digital legacy becomes part of the story you leave behind—one that is easier for your family to honor, protect, and remember.
