A digital legacy is everything a person leaves behind online and on their devices: the accounts, the photos, the messages, the money sitting in apps, the subscriptions, the domain name, and the passwords that hold it all together. It is the part of a life nobody can see from the outside, which is why families are so often surprised by how much of it there is.

This guide explains what a digital legacy includes, what the law says about it in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe, the settings the big platforms now give you, and a short plan for leaving yours in order. If you live in the UK, our UK version covers UK law. If someone has already died and you are the one dealing with it, start with the complete guide instead.

In short: most of a digital legacy is not property that passes under a will. It is a set of accounts, each governed by its platform's terms. Planning one takes an afternoon: a list of what you have, the legacy settings on your Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok accounts, a password manager with emergency access, and a note that tells your executor where to look. Passwords do not go in the will.

What a digital legacy includes

Our checklist lists them by category.

What the law says where you live

An online account is a contract between a person and a platform, and almost every platform's terms say the account is personal and cannot be transferred. That is the starting point everywhere. What differs is how far the law lets your executor go beyond it. This is general information, not legal advice.

Money is the exception in every one of these places. A balance in PayPal, a payout owed by Google or the value in a crypto wallet is property, it belongs to the estate, and an executor can claim it.

The settings the platforms give you

We compared these, and more than a dozen others, in which platforms let you plan for your own death.

How to plan yours in an afternoon

1
Make the list

Every account that matters, in four groups: memories, money, subscriptions, and the keys. Use the checklist. You do not need to write down passwords, only what exists and roughly where.

2
Turn on the legacy settings

Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, whichever you use. About half an hour in total. Tell the people you have chosen, and give the Apple access key to your contact now, so nobody has to hunt for it later.

3
Put the keys in one place

A password manager with emergency access for one trusted person. If you would rather not, a sealed letter with the master passwords, kept with the will and updated when they change.

4
Write a letter of wishes, and mention it in the will

The letter is separate from the will, so it can be changed without a lawyer. Which accounts to memorialise, which to delete, who gets the photos, what to do with the domain name, and where the list and the keys are. In the United States, ask whoever drafts your will to include a clause giving your executor authority over your digital assets, and to say whether that extends to the contents of your email and messages.

5
Review it once a year

Accounts change, legacy contacts move away, and platforms add tools. TikTok now has legacy settings that many people have not seen yet.

Passwords never go in the will. In most places a will becomes a public court record once it goes through probate. Passwords belong in a password manager, or in a sealed letter kept with the will.

What happens without a plan

The family finds out about the accounts as the reminders arrive: the birthday notification, the renewal email, the subscription charge on a card that should have been cancelled. They then work through each platform's process with whatever documents they can find, which takes months, and the things with no route, like the photos in a locked phone, are often lost. Our stories page is a collection of exactly that, told by the families it happened to.

What a digital legacy service does

Three different things get called digital legacy services, and they are worth telling apart. Planning tools store your list, your wishes and sometimes your passwords for release after death. The platforms' own settings now do much of this for free. Notification services tell many organisations about a death from one form, though each still runs its own process, and the ones we have looked at do not reach social media. Closure services, which is what Departed Digital is, do the platform work for the family after a death: each request submitted with the right documents, followed up, and recorded.

If you are the executor

Start with the two documents every platform asks for: the death certificate and the court document that appoints you. Our documents guide explains what they are called in each country. Money in online accounts belongs to the estate and should be claimed. The balances in PayPal, Google and Amazon are the ones most often missed. Keep a record of every request and reply, because the estate accounts may need to show what was done with digital assets that had a value.

Or let us handle the accounts

If someone has died and the digital legacy has landed on you, Departed Digital closes or memorialises every account for the family, with the documents sent once and a written record at the end. Packages start from £149, checkout shows your local currency automatically, and we work with families in the UK and internationally.

Planning ahead? Turn on the legacy settings this weekend and write the list. Dealing with it now? Start a case.

Written and checked by Steven Kong

Founder of Departed Digital, a London service that closes or memorialises online accounts after a death. Every guide is checked against the platform's own process before it is published, and again when the process changes. About Steven