The short version is that access to somebody's digital accounts after they die is much harder than people expect, and in many cases impossible regardless of documentation.
Providers are bound by their own terms and by privacy law, and a death certificate plus proof of executorship does not automatically grant access to an account. Some will memorialise. Some will close. Very few will simply hand over the contents.
Roughly what to expect
Policies change and vary by country, so treat this as a starting point rather than a rule.
Email
- Usual outcome
- Rarely released. Sometimes closed on request.
- What helps
- A legacy contact set up in advance
Photo storage
- Usual outcome
- Sometimes released to a designated contact
- What helps
- A legacy or inactive account contact
Social media
- Usual outcome
- Memorialised or deleted, contents rarely released
- What helps
- A legacy contact, or clear instructions
Subscriptions
- Usual outcome
- Cancelled on request with a death certificate
- What helps
- Knowing they exist at all
Cloud storage
- Usual outcome
- Varies, and often refused
- What helps
- Shared folders set up while alive
Domain names and websites
- Usual outcome
- Transferable, but registrar dependent
- What helps
- Registrar details written down
Cryptocurrency
- Usual outcome
- Unrecoverable without the keys
- What helps
- Nothing after the fact. Only preparation
| Account type | Usual outcome | What helps |
|---|---|---|
| Rarely released. Sometimes closed on request. | A legacy contact set up in advance | |
| Photo storage | Sometimes released to a designated contact | A legacy or inactive account contact |
| Social media | Memorialised or deleted, contents rarely released | A legacy contact, or clear instructions |
| Subscriptions | Cancelled on request with a death certificate | Knowing they exist at all |
| Cloud storage | Varies, and often refused | Shared folders set up while alive |
| Domain names and websites | Transferable, but registrar dependent | Registrar details written down |
| Cryptocurrency | Unrecoverable without the keys | Nothing after the fact. Only preparation |
Legacy contacts are the thing that actually works
Several large providers let you nominate somebody in advance who can request access after your death. It takes minutes, it is free, and it is the single most effective step available.
It works because you granted permission while alive, which is a completely different legal situation from somebody requesting access afterwards. That distinction is why preparation succeeds where paperwork later usually fails.
The subscriptions keep running
This is the practical problem families hit first. Payments continue for months or years because nobody knows the subscriptions exist, and they are only discoverable through bank statements.
Twelve months of statements is the way to find them, for the same reason it is the way to find accounts and policies generally, which is covered in how to find someone's accounts.
What to do now, for yourself
Set legacy contacts where they are offered. Write down which email address is the recovery address for everything, because that account is the key to most of the others. Make sure somebody can get into the password manager, through its own recovery mechanism rather than through a written master password.
And write down what would be a real loss. Photographs are what families grieve twice over, and they are usually the most recoverable thing if a designated contact exists.