Every platform will tell you what happens to your account when you die, if you know where to look. Almost nobody looks, and families find out the hard way: a phone that cannot be unlocked, a photo library behind a court order, a Snapchat that nobody can delete because deletion needs the person's own email.
So we checked. In September 2026 we read the published bereavement and legacy policies of 20 services people in the UK use every day and answered three questions for each: can you set anything up now so someone can act after your death, what can your family do if you did not, and what does the platform want to see.
What we found. Six of the twenty let you plan ahead: Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Microsoft's OneDrive, and the password managers. Three will not release a person's data to a UK family without a court order if nothing was set up: Apple, Google and Dropbox. One, Snapchat, cannot be closed by a family at all without access to the person's own email. Two delete accounts on a timer whether or not anyone asks: WhatsApp after 120 days, Microsoft after two years. Nobody, anywhere, gives out a password.
The comparison
"Legacy setting" means something you can switch on while alive so that a named person can act. "Without it" is what a family can do using the platform's bereavement process alone. Everything here was read on the platform's own help pages in September 2026 and will change; each row links to our fuller guide where we have one.
| Service | Legacy setting you can turn on now | Without it, what the family can do | What the platform asks for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple (Apple Account, iCloud, iPhone) | Yes. Legacy Contact, with an access key. | Close the account. Remove Activation Lock with proof of purchase. Account contents only with a court order in the UK. Guide | Access key and death certificate; or a court order naming Apple |
| Google (Gmail, Photos, Drive, YouTube, Android) | Yes. Inactive Account Manager. | Close the account, claim money owed, but data only with a court order. Guide | Death certificate and your ID; probate for money; court order for data |
| Yes. Legacy contact, or delete after death. | Memorialise (anyone) or remove (family or executor). Guide | Obituary or death certificate; family or executor proof for removal | |
| Yes. Legacy contact, or delete after death. | Memorialise or remove, requested separately from Facebook. Guide | Obituary link; birth or death certificate, or proof of authority, for removal | |
| Microsoft (Outlook, Hotmail, OneDrive) | Partly. OneDrive digital legacy: a sharing code gives a trusted contact read-only access after a 72 hour wait. Nothing for the mailbox. | Close the account with a death certificate. Contents need a court order. Inactive accounts are frozen after a year and closed after two. Guide | Death certificate and proof of relationship |
| Password managers (1Password, Bitwarden and others) | Yes. Emergency access for a named person, with a waiting period you set. | Nothing. Without emergency access or the master password, the vault is unreachable by design. | Not applicable |
| No. | Delete the account from the phone if it is unlocked. Otherwise WhatsApp deletes it after 120 days of inactivity. Export chats first. Guide | Nothing; the process runs on the phone or on the timer | |
| X (Twitter) | No. | Deactivation for family or the executor. No memorial state, no access. Guide | Death certificate and your ID |
| TikTok | No. | Memorialisation with a "Remembering" label, or removal, through a support form that can take weeks. Guide | Death certificate and proof of relationship |
| No. | Memorialise with an obituary link, or close with documents. Deletion completes within 30 days. Guide | Obituary link; death certificate, ID and proof of relationship or authority to close | |
| Snapchat | No. | Snapchat only accepts requests from the email address on the account, and will not grant access. A family that cannot get into that email cannot delete the account. | Sign in from the account's verified email |
| No. | Deactivation by email, with proof of death and of your relationship. | Death certificate or obituary; birth or marriage certificate, or your name in the obituary | |
| No. | A support request with proof of death can get the account deleted. No formal process. | Proof of death | |
| Yahoo and AOL | No. | Close the account with a death certificate. Contents need a court order that satisfies Yahoo's legal team. Guide | Death certificate |
| PayPal | No. | Close the account; the balance is paid to the estate by cheque in the deceased person's name. Guide | Death certificate, your ID, the will or probate naming the executor |
| Amazon | No. | A bereavement team closes the account on the executor's request. Closure is permanent and takes Kindle books and Prime with it. Guide | Probate or executor documents, your ID, the account email |
| Netflix | No. | Cancel from the account page if a device is signed in, or ask support. Otherwise it stops when the card fails. Guide | Usually nothing |
| Spotify | No. | Support can cancel the subscription, close the account and move playlists to another account. Seven days to change your mind, then deletion. | Death certificate or similar proof |
| Steam | No. | No official policy. Accounts and games are non-transferable under the subscriber agreement; families report mixed results asking support. | Case by case |
| Dropbox | No. | Access to the files only with a court order stating the person wanted you to have them. The synced folder on their computer is usually the practical route. | Court order |
Four things that stand out
The photos are the problem. The two places most people's photos live, Apple and Google, are also the two that require a court order without a legacy setting. Setting up Apple's Legacy Contact and Google's Inactive Account Manager takes ten minutes between them and is the single most useful thing on this page.
Memorials are a Meta thing. Only Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok keep a profile as a memorial. Everyone else deletes or does nothing. If a family wants somewhere to remember someone, it will be one of those four.
Some accounts cannot be closed from outside. Snapchat's process needs the account's own email. Steam has no process at all. WhatsApp's only route is the phone. For these, the phone and the email are the keys, which is why we tell families never to wipe the phone first.
The clocks are running. WhatsApp deletes after 120 days without a connection. Microsoft freezes a mailbox after a year and closes the account after two. Meta gives 180 days to appeal a suspension. A family that waits for probate before doing anything can lose things that were still there at the funeral.
What to do with this
For yourself: turn on the six that exist. Apple Legacy Contact, Google Inactive Account Manager, a legacy contact or delete-after-death choice on Facebook and Instagram, OneDrive digital legacy if you use it, and emergency access in a password manager. Then write down what you have. Our guide to planning a digital legacy does it in an afternoon.
For someone who has died: start with the phone, then the checklist, and use the platform guides linked in the table. If a request is not working, we have pages for Facebook, Instagram and Apple.
How we checked, and using this table
Each row is based on the platform's own help pages as read in September 2026, cross-checked against the experience of UK families on public forums where the policy and the practice differ. Platforms change these processes without notice. If you find a row that is out of date, email us and we will correct it and note the change here.
Journalists, charities and funeral directors are welcome to quote or reproduce the table with a link to this page. For comment on any of it, or on what families actually run into, Steven Kong, the founder of Departed Digital, can be reached at hello@departed.digital.
Dealing with one of these now? Departed Digital closes or memorialises every account on this table for the family, with the documents sent once and a written record at the end. Start a case, from £149.