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, the passwords that hold it all together. It is the part of a life that 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 UK law does and does not say about it, the tools the big platforms now give you to plan for it, and a short, realistic plan for leaving yours in order. If someone has already died and you are the one dealing with it, our complete guide starts there instead.
In short: most of a digital legacy is not property that can be inherited but accounts governed by each platform's terms, which is why families rely on the platforms' own bereavement processes. Planning one takes an afternoon: a list of what you have, the legacy settings on your Apple, Google, Facebook and Instagram accounts, a password manager with emergency access, and a letter of wishes that tells your executor where to look. Passwords do not go in the will.
What a digital legacy includes
- Accounts that hold memories: photo libraries in iCloud, Google Photos or Amazon Photos, social media profiles, WhatsApp and Messenger chats, voice notes, a YouTube channel, a blog.
- Accounts that hold money: PayPal, online banking and savings apps, investment and cryptocurrency apps, a Google or Apple balance, unpaid earnings from selling online, loyalty points.
- Accounts that cost money: every subscription, from Netflix to the cloud storage that holds the photos, and the phone and broadband contracts.
- Accounts that unlock the others: the email address, the phone number, the password manager, the two-factor authentication app.
- Things with a value of their own: a domain name, a website, an online shop, a games library, cryptocurrency, digital music and books, which are usually licences rather than property.
- The devices: the phone, laptop and tablet, which are property, and the data on them, which depends on the passcode.
Our checklist lists them by category, with a printable version.
What UK law says
Less than most people assume. There is no UK law that transfers a person's online accounts to their family or executor. An account is a contract between the person and the platform, and almost every platform's terms say the account is personal, cannot be transferred, and must not be used by anyone else, including after death. What the executor inherits is the person's property and their rights, so money in a PayPal balance is part of the estate and can be claimed, while the Facebook profile is not property at all and is dealt with under Facebook's own rules.
The practical consequences:
- An executor with a grant of probate can claim money held in accounts, and the platforms recognise the grant for that purpose.
- Nobody has a legal right to log in as the person, and doing so can breach the platform's terms and, in some circumstances, the law on unauthorised access. Families use the bereavement processes instead.
- Photos and messages are the hardest case. Apple and Google will not release account contents to a UK family without a court order, and a will does not change that. What a will and a letter of wishes can do is tell the executor what exists, what you want done with it, and where the access tools are.
- Passwords should never be written into a will, because a will becomes a public document once probate is granted. They go in a password manager or a sealed letter kept with the will.
The Law Commission for England and Wales has been looking at how digital assets fit into property law, and the position may develop. For now, the platforms' own tools do more for a family than the law does.
The tools the platforms give you
- Apple Legacy Contact. On an iPhone: Settings, your name, Sign-In & Security, Legacy Contact. Choose someone, and give them the access key Apple generates. With the key and a death certificate they can get into the account. Without it, Apple asks a UK family for a court order. Our Apple guide explains.
- Google Inactive Account Manager. Choose how long Google should wait after you stop using the account, who should be told, and what they should receive. Google's only legacy route that avoids a court order for the data. Google guide.
- Facebook legacy contact, or delete after death. Settings, Accounts Centre, Memorialisation. A legacy contact can look after your memorialised profile; the alternative setting has Facebook delete the account once it learns of your death. Facebook follows your setting, not your family's wishes. Facebook guide.
- Instagram legacy contact, or delete after death. The same two choices, set separately. Instagram guide.
- Password manager emergency access. 1Password, Bitwarden and others let a named person request access, with a waiting period during which you can refuse. The single most useful thing you can set up, because it covers every account at once.
- Microsoft, WhatsApp, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, PayPal: no legacy setting, apart from OneDrive's digital legacy sharing code. These rely on the family using the bereavement process, which is where a written list matters.
We compared all of these, and fourteen more, in which platforms let you plan for your own death.
How to plan yours in an afternoon
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.
Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram. Twenty minutes in total. Tell the person you have chosen, and give the Apple access key to them now rather than leaving it to be found.
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, updated when they change.
Not part of the will, so it can be changed without a solicitor. 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. Tell your executor it exists.
Accounts change, legacy contacts move away, and platforms add tools. A note in the calendar is enough.
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 without a 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 legacy settings now do much of this for free. Notification services such as Life Ledger and Settld tell many companies about a death from one form, which saves repeating the conversation, though each company still runs its own process. And closure services, which is what Departed Digital is: after a death, we do the platform work for the family, submitting each request with the right documents, chasing every one, and handing over a written record of what happened to every account.
If you are the executor
Start with the two documents every platform asks for, the death certificate and the grant, then the documents guide for how each platform wants them. 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.
Planning ahead? Print the checklist and set the four legacy settings this weekend. Dealing with it now? Start a case.