Digital legacy
Also known as: digital estate planning, digital inheritance, digital afterlife planning, digital estate
A digital legacy is everything you leave behind online: email, social media accounts, photos in the cloud, documents, subscriptions, cryptocurrency, and passwords.
Planning it means deciding who can access or close which accounts, using features such as Google's Inactive Account Manager, Apple's Legacy Contact, and Facebook's legacy contact, and leaving instructions for your executor. While most people plan for physical belongings, forgotten digital accounts can lock families out of precious photos or leave subscriptions charging for months.
Digital legacy, explained at three levels
At home
A digital legacy plan is like leaving your family a labelled set of keys and a note explaining which key opens which door and where important papers are kept. For your online life, it means choosing who can get into your email, photos and accounts after you die, using features like Apple's Legacy Contact, and telling your executor where to find the instructions.
At work
A digital legacy is the online accounts and data a person leaves behind. For businesses, it means planning how the company keeps access to its domain, email, banking portals and other accounts if an owner or key employee dies or becomes incapacitated. Businesses care because accounts tied to one person's login can lock the company out for months when that person is gone.
At home
Most online accounts are tied to one person's login and protected by MFA on one phone. When someone dies or loses capacity, family members often cannot get in, and providers refuse to share passwords because of privacy rules. Some services offer planned handover tools: Apple's Legacy Contact gives a chosen person an access key, Google's Inactive Account Manager shares data after a set period of inactivity, and password managers offer emergency access with a waiting period.
At work
For small business owners, a digital legacy includes the company's domain name, email tenant, website hosting, accounting software, bank portals and social media accounts. If all of these sit under one owner's personal login, the business can be locked out after a death or sudden illness. Document critical accounts, register assets to the company, and make sure a trusted person or the business's IT provider has an approved way in.
At home
A will can become a public document once it goes through probate, the court process that confirms an estate, so writing passwords directly into it can expose your accounts. Passwords also change, while a will rarely does. A better approach is to name where the information lives, such as a password manager's emergency access or a sealed letter with a lawyer. In my view, point to a secure password manager instead of listing passwords themselves.
At work
Include digital assets in business continuity and succession planning, with an inventory of accounts, owners and recovery methods. Avoid single-owner admin accounts by using multiple named administrators plus break-glass accounts. Register domains, cloud subscriptions and software licences to the company rather than individuals, and document vendor contacts and account recovery processes. Review the plan when key people change roles, since outdated access lists are a common gap.
Real-world examples
At home
Sophie set her sister as her Apple Legacy Contact and enabled Google's Inactive Account Manager, so family photos would never be lost.
At work
Thomas's Ottawa MSP helped a client after its founder died suddenly. Because the domain and Microsoft 365 admin were in his personal name, recovering access took months.
How it compares
| feature | Apple | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Service | Legacy Contact | Inactive Account Manager | Legacy contact |
| Triggers | Death certificate plus access key | Months of inactivity | Memorialization request |
| Access level | Most iCloud data | Data you choose to share | Manage memorial profile |
| Setup | iPhone settings | Google account settings | Account settings |
Each service handles digital legacies differently, so set up each one.
For analysts
For small business clients, I'd include 'what if the owner can't be reached?' in risk assessments. Single points of access failure are surprisingly common.
History & origin
As people's lives moved online in the 2000s, families increasingly struggled to access accounts of relatives who had died, since service terms and privacy rules restricted access. Google launched Inactive Account Manager in 2013, letting users choose what happens to their data after long inactivity. Facebook introduced memorialized accounts and, in 2015, legacy contacts. Apple added Legacy Contact with iOS 15.2 in December 2021, allowing chosen people to access data with an access key and death certificate. In 2023, Google began deleting personal accounts inactive for two years, adding urgency to planning. Estate lawyers in Canada increasingly recommend including digital assets in wills. In my view, a digital legacy plan is one of the kindest gifts you can leave your family.