What happens to your online accounts when you die?
Photos, email, crypto and subscriptions. The law caught up in 2015; most plans have not.
The short answer
Most US states have adopted a version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which lets an executor or agent access digital assets if you granted authority, ideally through the provider’s own tool first and then in your will or power of attorney. Without that authority, providers usually refuse.
A generation of family photographs now lives behind two factor authentication, and an executor with a death certificate and no authority is routinely told no.
The legal position
Nearly every state has adopted a version of RUFADAA. It sets an order of priority: the provider’s own online tool comes first, then your will, trust or power of attorney, then the provider’s terms of service.
The practical consequence is that a setting inside your Google or Apple account outranks your will, so the fastest useful step is the one that takes five minutes inside the account.
The provider tools worth using now
Google Inactive Account Manager lets you nominate contacts and decide what they receive after a period of inactivity. Apple Legacy Contact lets you nominate somebody who can request access with a key and a death certificate. Meta allows a legacy contact or deletion.
These are the tools RUFADAA points to first, and they are free.
What to put in the documents
Explicit authority for your executor and your agent under the financial power of attorney to access, manage and close digital accounts and the content of electronic communications. Without the content language, a provider may only release a catalogue of who you emailed rather than what was said.
Do not put passwords in the will. A will becomes a public record when filed. Reference a separate list or a password manager instead.
Crypto is the hard case
Self custodied assets have no support line and no recovery process. If the seed phrase dies with you, the asset is gone permanently, and no court order changes that.
The realistic approach is a documented, secured process: where the keys are, how to reach them, and who is authorised, held somewhere your executor can actually get to. Exchange held assets are more straightforward and follow the exchange’s own inheritance process.
The five minute inventory
Email, photo storage, password manager, financial and crypto accounts, subscriptions, social media, domain names and anything that generates income. Note where each lives and who should get it.
Store the list where your executor can reach it. A vault with permissioned sharing solves this without handing anybody your passwords today.
Questions people also ask
Can my family access my email after I die?
Only with authority. Under RUFADAA the provider’s own legacy tool takes priority, followed by explicit authority in your will or power of attorney. Without either, providers routinely refuse and federal privacy law supports them.
Should I write my passwords in my will?
No. A will filed with a court becomes a public record. Grant authority in the will and keep credentials in a separate, secured place your executor can reach.
What happens to crypto if nobody has the keys?
For self custodied assets, it is effectively unrecoverable. There is no issuer to appeal to. This is the one asset class where the access plan matters more than the legal document.
Legacy Buddy provides document creation tools, not legal advice.
Knowing what to do is the hard part. This is the easy part.
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