What happens to your online accounts when you die?
We live our lives, increasingly, online. Without a simple inventory, your family inherits a locked phone and a guessing game.
Start with email
Your email is the master key: password resets for almost everything else flow through it. Record each address you use, who provides it, and how to get in. If your family can open your inbox, they can work outwards. If they cannot, every locked account becomes a separate battle.
Money and subscriptions
Online banking, savings apps, investments, PayPal, crypto exchanges. Then the money going out: subscriptions, memberships and direct debits that will keep charging until someone cancels them. List both, with provider names and how each is accessed. Anything holding money gets a full record; anything taking money gets cancellation instructions.
Social media and memories
Photos are the irreplaceable part. Note where yours actually live - phone, cloud, social accounts - and what you would want: preserved, shared with family, or deleted. For social profiles themselves, decide ahead whether each should be memorialised, closed, or left to a named person.
Use the tools platforms give you
Several big platforms now offer this properly. Google's Inactive Account Manager hands access to someone you nominate after a period of inactivity. Apple lets you add a Legacy Contact who can access your data. Facebook offers legacy contacts and memorialisation. These take minutes to set up and cost nothing - do them, then record that you did.
How to record this
One list, three columns: the account, what it is for, and how to get in. Skip nothing you would miss and nothing that charges you. A spreadsheet or a simple document works fine - or keep it in your Wiseplan vault alongside your accounts and paperwork, where your executor will actually look. Review it yearly: this is the fastest-changing part of any estate.
Common questions
Can my family just log in as me?
Sometimes, but it is murky ground. Most platforms forbid logging in as someone else in their terms, and some data needs a formal request. An inventory plus the legacy tools each platform offers is far cleaner than shared passwords - though recording credentials for your executor remains common practical sense.
What about cryptocurrency or online-only savings?
These are the highest-risk assets to leave undocumented: no statements arrive, and without recovery phrases the funds may be unrecoverable. Record what exists, where it is held, and how to access it. No statement will ever arrive to remind anyone.
Should this go in my will?
Wills become public during probate, so never put passwords in one. List the existence of important accounts if you like, but keep access details in your private plan, alongside everything else your executor needs.
Make the hard parts easier.
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