In the days after a death, families often discover that grief comes with a second kind of work: closing loops. Phone calls. Paperwork. Decisions about services. And then, quietly, the online life that keeps humming—birthday reminders, “On This Day” memories, friend requests, tags, messages from people who didn’t know yet. It can feel jarring to see a loved one’s name behaving like nothing happened.
That’s where the idea of a Facebook legacy contact can matter. It’s not about letting someone “take over” your account. It’s about making sure your family isn’t left guessing about what you would have wanted: a memorialized space where friends can share stories, or a clean deletion for privacy. Either choice can be loving. The goal is to make it clearer—and gentler—for the people who will be carrying your life forward.
What a Facebook legacy contact really is
A Facebook legacy contact is the person you choose to manage limited parts of your profile after it becomes memorialized. The key phrase is “limited parts.” This is not the same as sharing your password, and it isn’t the same as giving someone full control. A legacy contact can help keep a memorialized profile respectful and organized, but they don’t receive full login access and they can’t read private messages.
Facebook introduced the feature to help families handle the reality that profiles often become gathering places after a death—especially when the person had a wide circle. In Facebook’s own announcement about the feature, it describes memorialized profiles showing “Remembering” and giving a legacy contact the ability to pin a post to the profile and, if enabled, download an archive of shared content. According to Facebook, this is meant to support remembrance while reducing the pressure for families to manage an account the way they did in life.
In everyday terms, a legacy contact is a trusted helper for a specific moment: the moment a profile becomes a memorial. If you’re doing social media after death planning, it’s one of the simplest “small decisions” that can save your family from bigger stress later.
What a legacy contact can and can’t do
Families often assume a legacy contact works like an executor with full authority. It doesn’t. Think of it more like being allowed to tend a public memory garden—without access to the private house behind it.
Third-party estate planning and end-of-life resources regularly summarize the practical permissions in plain language. For example, Trust & Will outlines that a legacy contact may be able to do things like pin a tribute post, respond to friend requests, update the profile and cover photo, and (if enabled) download a copy of what was shared—while also emphasizing the boundaries: no logging in as the person, no reading messages, and no making new posts “as them.”
Those limits are part of what makes the tool useful. It lets a family protect privacy while still maintaining a space where condolences and memories can be shared. If your loved one valued privacy deeply, those boundaries may actually feel reassuring.
How to set up a Facebook legacy contact
People often search set up Facebook legacy contact because they want a clear path, not a tech scavenger hunt. The exact menu labels can shift over time, especially as Facebook consolidates settings into Accounts Center, but the intent stays consistent: you’re looking for your memorialization settings Facebook options.
A practical way to approach it is to set aside five calm minutes and do it while you’re already in your settings—before a crisis makes every click feel heavier. Many how-to guides still describe the pathway as Settings & privacy, then Settings, then Memorialization settings. For instance, Online Tech Tips describes choosing a legacy contact from Memorialization settings and also choosing the alternative option to request deletion after death.
Here’s what matters more than the exact labels: you are choosing one person, confirming their name, and deciding whether you want your account deleted after death instead of memorialized. If you do choose a legacy contact, it’s wise to tell them. Not with a dramatic conversation—just a simple message: “I chose you as my legacy contact. If anything ever happens, I’d want you to pin a note and keep things respectful.”
And if you’re unsure who to choose, start by picturing what the job looks like. It’s not a daily responsibility. It’s a short-term stewardship: pinning a service notice if your family wants to share one, accepting a few friend requests from distant relatives, and quietly removing anything that feels harmful or spammy.
Memorialize or delete: the choice underneath the settings
The setting that sits beside legacy contact is often the more emotional one: do you want your account to become a memorial, or do you want it removed entirely? People search delete Facebook account after death for many reasons—privacy, safety, a desire for clean boundaries, or simply the feeling that an online profile shouldn’t outlive the person.
A memorialized profile can be comforting when your loved one had a large community, when friends live far away, or when the comments and photos on the profile feel like part of the story you don’t want to lose. A memorial can also help families share consistent information in one place, especially if service plans change and people are looking for updates.
Deletion can be the right fit when the person would not have wanted an online memorial, when harassment or scam risks are a concern, or when the family wants to reduce visibility and stop reminders from resurfacing in unexpected ways. Once deleted, it’s permanent—so it can help to pause and ask: are there photos, posts, or conversations that someone in the family would want to save first?
If you want a guided, family-centered walkthrough of what memorialization and deletion look like in real life, Funeral.com’s resource on how to delete or memorialize a Facebook account after someone dies is written for people who are grieving and trying to make decisions without adding conflict.
If you’re managing a deceased Facebook account right now
If you’re reading this because someone has already died, you may be carrying both grief and responsibility. The urgent question usually isn’t philosophical. It’s practical: how do we stop the account from feeling “active,” and how do we prevent misuse?
Guides written for families tend to repeat a few steady principles. A memorialized account is meant to be protected: typically no one can log in the way they did before, and the profile becomes a place for remembrance rather than ongoing activity. Funeral home guidance such as Park Memorial’s overview describes memorialization as a state where the profile shows “Remembering” and friends can still post memories, while a legacy contact (if one was chosen) may help manage limited items like tribute posts, friend requests, and profile photos.
In practice, families tend to move through this in layers. First: protect and stabilize. Second: decide memorialize vs delete. Third: save what matters—photos, key posts, names of groups or pages the person administered. That’s why it can help to zoom out and treat Facebook as one piece of a broader digital puzzle.
If you’re also trying to manage email accounts, subscriptions, cloud photos, and recurring charges, Funeral.com’s Digital Accounts After a Death: A Practical Closure Checklist walks families through the bigger picture without assuming you have every password or every document on day one.
How this connects to funeral planning
It can feel strange to bring Facebook settings into the same conversation as funeral planning, but families live in both worlds now. The service is real and tangible—people gathering, a printed program, a song that makes everyone cry. And the online world becomes a parallel gathering space, where condolences arrive at 2 a.m. from a high school friend who lives across the country.
For some families, the memorialized profile becomes a bridge: a place to share the obituary, to post a single pinned message with service details, or simply to let people express their love. For other families, it becomes too open, too public, too vulnerable. There is no one right choice. The best choice is the one that matches the person who died and the people who are left to live with the outcome.
One gentle way to make the decision is to ask two questions. First: “Would they have wanted their profile to remain as a public space?” Second: “Do we have the emotional bandwidth to manage what comes with that?” If the answer is no to either, deletion may be kinder. If the answer is yes and there’s someone trusted to steward it, memorialization with a legacy contact can be a steady middle path.
If “Memories” notifications and resurfacing posts are part of what’s hurting right now, you may also find comfort in Funeral.com’s guide to managing ‘On This Day’ alerts and digital grief, which speaks to the emotional impact of platforms that keep reminding you.
Planning ahead: a simple digital legacy step that protects your family
When people search digital legacy Facebook, they’re usually searching for relief. Not just relief for themselves, but for the people who will one day have to clean up the loose ends. A legacy contact is one small step. It won’t solve everything, but it reduces guesswork.
If you want to take the next step beyond Facebook, consider creating a simple “digital folder” for your household: a list of key accounts, where important photos live, and who should handle what. Funeral.com’s guide on digital legacy planning offers a compassionate starting point that doesn’t require you to become a cybersecurity expert.
And if you’re wondering how families actually share access without handing over passwords casually, tech reporting has increasingly focused on emergency access tools in password managers. WIRED notes that some services have legacy options, while others may require legal documentation—and that planning ahead can reduce the need for last-minute scrambling.
None of this replaces the human parts of planning: naming the people who will speak for you, care for your children or pets, and honor your values. It’s simply an acknowledgment that love lives online now, too—and your family deserves a map.
FAQs
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What is a legacy contact on Facebook?
A Facebook legacy contact is the person you choose to manage limited parts of your profile after it’s memorialized. They can help with certain profile actions, but they do not get full login access and cannot read private messages. For background on how Facebook designed the feature, see Facebook’s announcement on adding a legacy contact.
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What permissions does a Facebook legacy contact have?
Legacy contact permissions are limited and focused on managing a memorialized profile respectfully—often including pinning a post, responding to friend requests, updating profile and cover photos, and (if enabled) downloading an archive of shared content. Summaries like Trust & Will's guide explain common permissions and the limits in plain language.
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Can a legacy contact log in and use the account like the person who died?
No. A legacy contact is not meant to “be” the person online. They typically can’t log in as the person, read messages, or post as if they were the account owner. The role is stewardship, not replacement.
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How do I set up a Facebook legacy contact?
You’ll generally find it in your memorialization settings within Facebook’s settings. Because menus can change, follow the pathway that leads to Memorialization settings and choose a trusted friend as your legacy contact. If you want a current, family-friendly walkthrough of what memorialization and deletion look like in practice, Funeral.com’s guide on deleting or memorializing a Facebook account can help.
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Should I choose deletion instead of memorialization?
It depends on your values and your family’s needs. Memorialization can preserve a space for condolences and stories. Deletion can offer privacy and clean boundaries, especially if scams or unwanted attention are concerns. If you’re deciding for a loved one who has died, consider saving irreplaceable photos or posts first, then choose the option that best protects the family.
