Digital inheritance: what happens to accounts when you die

Digital inheritance is everything you leave behind in the digital world when you die: your accounts, your photos and files, your subscriptions, the money you hold on online platforms and your crypto. None of it closes or passes on by itself: if your family does not know it exists or cannot get to it, it ends up in limbo or is lost. This guide explains what happens to each part, what the law says and how to get it ready.

This guide is for information only. For your own situation, especially if there are valuable assets, talk to a lawyer or notary in your country.

What is digital inheritance?

It is the set of assets, data and memories you hold in digital form, plus the information needed to reach them. It helps to think of it in three layers, because each one is handled differently:

Layer	What it includes	What happens if it is not prepared
Financial	Online bank balances, payment wallets, investment platforms, crypto, domain names, income from a shop or a channel	Money nobody claims, or that takes months to recover
Digital	Email, social media, cloud storage, phone and computer, subscriptions, password managers	Accounts that stay active, charges that keep coming, information that cannot be reached
Emotional	Photos, videos, messages, writing, memories	Memories lost behind a locked device or a closed account

The financial layer is part of your estate like any other asset. The other two do not always have economic value, but they are what families miss most.

What digital assets might you have without realising it?

Most people underestimate what they hold digitally. Go through these categories:

• Online money. Accounts with digital banks, wallets such as PayPal, balances on investment or crowdfunding platforms, gift cards, loyalty points with real value.
• Crypto. On an exchange or in self-custody, with its seed phrase.
• Personal accounts. Email, social media, messaging, cloud storage, photos, music, video.
• Subscriptions and recurring payments. Streaming, software, gyms, news, storage. They keep charging until someone cancels them.
• Content you have created. Photos, videos, writing, a blog, a channel, a podcast. Some earn income and may carry copyright that is also inherited.
• Business and work. Domain names, an online shop, invoicing tools, ad accounts, access other people need to keep the business running.
• Devices. Phone, computer, tablet: their unlock code is usually the door to everything else.

Be careful with purchases from digital stores, such as e-books, music or apps: often what you buy is a licence tied to your account, and whether it can be passed on depends on each store's terms.

What happens to your online accounts when you die?

Nothing happens, and that is the problem. Accounts do not close by themselves or find out that you have died. They stay active, keep charging subscriptions and keep holding your data until someone notifies each platform.

When the family tries, they run into three obstacles:

1. They do not know which accounts exist. Nobody has the full list of your services, least of all the ones paid with a card that gets cancelled.
2. Each platform has its own procedure. Some let you name a contact in advance, others ask for the death certificate and proof of relationship, and some have nothing in place.
3. Access is locked. Passwords, verification codes sent to a locked phone, accounts protected with two-factor authentication. The very things that protect you in life make access hard for your family.

Logging in with your passwords, even if your family has them, is not a good idea: it usually breaches the platform's terms of use and can get the account locked in the middle of the process.

What does the law say about digital inheritance?

There is no single answer: it depends on the country, and the law is still catching up. In general:

• Assets with economic value are part of the estate and pass under your will or, without one, under the inheritance rules of your country.
• Access to personal accounts is less clear. Some countries have specific rules. In Spain, for example, the data protection law lets relatives and heirs ask online services for access to a deceased person's content and decide what happens to it, unless that person expressly forbade it, and lets you name someone to act on your instructions. In the United States, many states have adopted a model law (RUFADAA) that gives priority to the instructions you leave in each platform's own tools.
• Platforms' terms of use carry a lot of weight. Even where the law allows access, each platform decides how it handles the request, which documents it asks for and how long it takes.

Being entitled to request access does not make it easy. The most effective way to help your family is to get things ready during your lifetime. Ask a local lawyer what applies where you live.

What do Google, Apple and Meta offer?

The big platforms have their own tools so that you can decide in advance. They are useful, but each one only covers its own ecosystem:

Platform	Tool	What it does
Google	Inactive Account Manager	If your account goes unused for 3, 6, 12 or 18 months, it notifies up to 10 people and can share with them the data you choose, which they can download for 3 months
Apple	Legacy Contact	The person you name can request access to your iCloud data with an access key you give them in advance and the death certificate
Meta (Facebook)	Legacy contact and memorialised account	Your contact can manage the memorial profile, but cannot log in or read your private messages

Setting them up takes a few minutes and is worth doing. But they do not cover your bank, your subscriptions, your crypto, the rest of your accounts or, above all, the context: what each thing is, what you want done with it and who it should go to.

Is a password manager enough?

It is a great tool for organising your logins during your lifetime, and some offer emergency access features. But for digital inheritance it leaves three questions open:

1. Who knows it exists? If your family does not know you use a password manager, or which one, they will not look for it.
2. How do they open it? The master password is exactly what you cannot leave lying around, and without it the manager is useless.
3. When do they open it? If you hand over the master password now, you give access to everything from that moment. If you do not, it may never arrive.

The underlying problem is not storing the information, but delivering it to the right person only once you have died, and checking that this is the case. That requires verification and a delivery route designed for it. Emergency access features in some managers rely on a waiting period passing without a response from you, with the risk of access being granted while you are still alive.

How to prepare your digital inheritance, step by step

You do not need to do it all in one day. This order works well:

1. Make an inventory. Write down what you have, without passwords: email, social media, cloud, banks and payment platforms, subscriptions, crypto, domains, devices. Our digital estate checklist helps you cover everything.
2. Decide what should happen to each item. Close, keep, download and delete, transfer. And who takes care of it.
3. Set up each platform's tools. Google's Inactive Account Manager, Apple's Legacy Contact and Meta's.
4. Leave the access information where it belongs. Not in your will or on a sheet of paper in plain sight, but somewhere that only opens when the time comes.
5. Choose your trusted person and tell them you have prepared everything and what they will need to do.
6. Review your will. Anything with economic value should be covered. If in doubt, ask your lawyer or notary.
7. Update it from time to time. New accounts, services you stop using, changes in your family.

Who should be your trusted person?

They are the one who will raise the alarm and set in motion everything you have prepared. They do not have to be your heir or the person you love most: they have to be someone who can do it.

• Reliable and discreet. They will handle personal information about you and your family.
• Comfortable enough with technology to follow a few simple steps, or able to ask for help.
• Easy to reach and, ideally, not dependent on you, because your absence will affect them too.
• Aware of the role. Tell them, explain what they will need to do and where to find what they need.

You can choose more than one, in case one is not available. At Inheritans this is your authorised contact: you register them with their ID and, if you were to die, they let us know with your capsule code, their ID and the death certificate. You can find the code in your account: give it to them or tell them where to find it.

What should you avoid?

• Writing passwords in your will. Several people read a will before the estate is divided, and copies are issued: anything you put there stops being secret.
• Handing over all your keys now. Whoever has them can use them from that moment, and you lose control.
• Leaving a sheet of passwords in a drawer. It goes out of date and anyone can find it.
• Assuming "it will sort itself out". Recovering an account without preparation can take months, and some things, like self-custodied crypto, can never be recovered without the keys.

What if you have crypto?

It is the most delicate part of digital inheritance: if it is in self-custody and nobody has the seed phrase, it is lost forever, and no platform or court can recover it. If it is on an exchange, it can be claimed with documents, but someone has to know it exists.

We cover it in depth on the Yoseyomo blog: how to inherit cryptocurrency and how to leave your seed phrase to your heirs without putting it at risk.

How does Inheritans help with digital inheritance?

Inheritans solves exactly the part that each platform's tools leave out: making sure the information reaches the people you choose, only when the time comes, with context.

• Assets organised by type. You can leave the information about your accounts, logins, finances, legal documents, belongings and wishes in a capsule, by category: finance, access, legal, emotional, knowledge and objects. They are all listed in asset types.
• Messages for each person. Alongside the practical information, whatever you want to say to each of them. We explain it in posthumous messages.
• Encrypted on your device. Your messages and assets are encrypted on your device before they are sent. Each message reaches only the people you choose, and only when the time comes.
• Verified delivery. Nothing is delivered until the team has reviewed the documents your authorised contact provides about the death. During verification, the team works with those documents, not with the content of your capsule. On paid plans, activity verification also alerts us if you stop logging in for the period you choose, and we try to reach you before notifying anyone.

Inheritans does not replace a will: it complements it. The will decides who inherits your assets; Inheritans makes sure your family knows what exists, how to reach it and what you wanted done.

Want to start your inventory? You can create your capsule for free with Freedom and move to another plan whenever you need. See plans.

What to do if a family member has died

If you are in that situation now, take it step by step:

1. Gather the basic documents: death certificate, the will or proof of who inherits, and your ID.
2. List the accounts and services you know about, and check bank statements to find subscriptions.
3. Contact each platform through its official procedure for deceased users.
4. Do not log in with their passwords, even if you have them.
5. If there are valuable assets, tell the lawyer or notary handling the estate.

Related questions

What is digital inheritance? Everything you leave behind in the digital world when you die: accounts, files, photos, subscriptions, money held on online platforms and crypto, together with the information your family needs to find and manage it.

What happens to my online accounts when I die? They do not close on their own. They stay active until someone notifies each platform, and each one has its own rules: some let you name a contact during your lifetime, others only deal with relatives who provide a death certificate.

Can my heirs access my email and social media? It depends on the country and on each platform. Some laws, such as Spain's data protection law, let relatives and heirs request access unless you have expressly forbidden it, but each platform decides how it handles the request.

Should I give my passwords to my family? It is better not to hand out passwords during your lifetime or write them in your will. Leave an inventory of what exists and make sure the access information reaches the person you choose only when the time comes.

Is a password manager enough? It helps you stay organised, but it does not solve delivery: someone has to know it exists, be able to open it and do so only after you have died. That requires verification and a delivery route designed for it.

Is digital inheritance taxed? Anything with economic value, such as balances on platforms or crypto, is part of your estate and is taxed like your other assets under your country's rules. Accounts without economic value, like a social media profile, are not.