Lee Supply - Tech Tips
To avoid locking out your loved ones upon your death, be sure to designate legacy contacts for your cloud-based accounts and notify those people. That way, your heirs can more easily retrieve photos and other important documents you might have stored.
Finally, have a conversation with your family about your digital assets. It’s not enough to simply pass along login credentials to survivors. Do you want your accounts to be memorialized? Do you want them to be deleted? Do you want people to be able to download your data? Make your wishes known.
Apple
You can designate a legacy contact from the settings on your iPhone, iPad or Mac under Password & Security. You can name more than one person.
When you’re gone, legacy contacts can access photos, messages, notes, files, apps and device backups without having to know your Apple ID password. They can’t access movies, music or books you’ve purchased or any data stored in your iCloud Keychain, such as payment information, passwords and passkeys.
Your digital next of kin will need to provide Apple with your death certificate, along with the 88-character alphanumeric access key that’s generated when you name them a legacy contact. You can notify someone via Messages when you add them as a legacy contact, and if they accept, they automatically have a copy of the access key stored in their Apple ID settings. To find the code, contacts can first tap their name, then Password & Security and then Legacy Contact. (If you’re named a digital contact, it’s a good idea to also make a copy of the access key and store it in a safe place.)
You can decide what to do with your Google account and data when the former becomes inactive after a chosen period. Go to myaccount.google.com, tap Data & Personalization, then scroll down and select “Make a plan for your account.” From there, you’ll be directed to Google’s inactive account manager tool where you can name contacts and choose which data—emails, photos, documents, etc.—you want to share with them.
The Meta Platforms Inc.-owned social network allows legacy contacts to look after your main profile if it’s memorialized. (Instagram profiles can also be memorialized, but there is no way yet to name legacy contacts.) Legacy contacts can be added to Facebook accounts by going into the memorialization settings under Settings & Privacy.
When you’re gone, legacy contacts can download a copy of what you’ve shared on Facebook, update your profile and cover photos, as well as request the removal of your account. They won’t be able to log into your account, read your messages—or add or remove friends.
LinkedIn & Twitter
These platforms don’t offer a way to name legacy contacts but survivors can request the removal of a deceased person’s account on both Twitter and LinkedIn.