Planning for Your Digital Assets After Death

This guidance was originally shaped by attorney Betsy Simmons Hannibal and later updated by attorney Jennie Lin.

When you sit down to build your estate plan, don't overlook what happens to your digital life — your photos, playlists, social profiles, inboxes, and other online accounts. Digital records now touch nearly everything we do, so a solid plan for them matters as much as any other part of your estate. Here's how to build one.

• What counts as a digital asset
• Why a digital asset plan matters
• How to build your plan

What counts as a digital asset?

A digital asset is any online or electronic record you own, license, or otherwise control. Common examples include:

• Email accounts
• Social media profiles — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and similar platforms
• Digital photos, music, or other files stored in the cloud or on a phone, laptop, or tablet
• Online bank accounts (the account access itself, not the money inside it)

This is far from a complete list — there are many other kinds of digital assets worth thinking through.

Why a digital asset plan matters

Some digital assets can pass to heirs through a will. Others can't. Either way, you should have a plan for all of them.

Getting heirs into assets your will can pass along

Say your will leaves your digital photos to a family member. That doesn't help much if they don't have the logins needed to open the account. Without that information, your loved ones may have to petition probate court for access — a route that can eat up considerable time and money. And for some assets, even a court order won't help. Cryptocurrency is a clear example: no one, not even the platform hosting it, can unlock it without the private keys.

Handling assets your will can't pass along

Many digital accounts aren't technically yours to leave to anyone, because you never owned them outright — you held a license to use them. Social media profiles, domain names, email accounts, and plenty of other online services fall into this category. Once you die, that license ends, and the company running the service decides what happens next.

Even so, you still have influence. You can write down what you want and hand those wishes to whoever is settling your estate, typically your executor. Maybe you want them to post a farewell message, shut the account down, wipe your files, or rescue specific data before it disappears.

Making life easier for your executor

There's also a practical reason to organize your digital assets: it saves your executor a lot of trouble. Executors are typically responsible for tasks like:

• Letting friends and contacts know you've died
• Passing property along to your heirs
• Settling your final bills
• Canceling your online subscriptions

Most of this work happens online these days, so giving your executor account access up front spares everyone a lot of frustration.

How to build your plan

A complete digital asset plan comes together in three steps.

1. Give your executor legal authority

Start by making sure your executor actually has the legal right to access your accounts. The cleanest way to do this is to grant that authority explicitly in your will. It's also worth naming your executor, or another trusted person, as a legacy contact or inactive-account manager on individual platforms — Facebook, Apple, and Google all offer some version of this. Not every company provides this option, and the level of access varies, but setting it up where available adds an extra layer of protection.

2. Leave clear, written instructions

Your executor shouldn't have to guess what you wanted done with your accounts and files. Spell it out. A simple letter, kept alongside your other estate planning paperwork, works fine — it doesn't need to be a formal legal document, so a plain word-processed page is enough.

What should that letter cover? Here are some categories worth addressing.

Social media — Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others

What happens to a social media account after death depends entirely on the platform's own policy. Facebook, for instance, lets loved ones convert an account into a memorial page where friends can still leave messages. Other services simply delete or deactivate the profile. In most cases, though, nothing changes until someone reports the death — which gives you a window of time to act. You might ask your executor to post one last update, remove specific content, or delete the account entirely.

Email — Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and others

Like social platforms, email providers set their own rules for what happens to an account after the owner dies — this applies to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or a workplace email system. Eventually, on the provider's timeline, the account gets deleted. Before that happens, you could have your executor forward, print, archive, or erase specific messages, or download your full contact list for family. Maybe there's a message worth saving for a grandchild, or others you'd rather see gone for good.

Online groups and communities

If you're active in a listserv, chat group, book club, or similar online community, consider asking your executor to let the group know you've passed, or to share a final note on your behalf.

Photos, music, and other digital files

Most of us keep photos, music, and videos scattered across cloud storage and personal devices. Two questions matter here: how will your executor get into the files, and what should happen to them once they do?

If no one has access to your storage account, it will eventually be shut down, and those files could be lost for good — a real loss if they include cherished photos or videos of family.

For files you actually own — your own photos and videos, or music you've purchased — you can leave them to specific people through your will or living trust. Describe them clearly (for example, "all of my Grand Canyon photos stored in my Google account") and make sure your executor has what they need to log in and download them. More on access below.

Online seller accounts

If you run a shop on eBay, Amazon, Etsy, or a similar site, leave instructions for what should happen to it. Once the platform learns of your death, you generally lose control over the account itself, but you can still pass along the inventory and any ongoing profits through your will or trust. If you want someone to keep running the shop, check the platform's terms — the account may not be transferable, meaning the new operator might need to start fresh with their own account.

Financial accounts and utilities

Leaving your executor a clear path into your financial and utility accounts online will make their job far easier, since they'll need this access to pay bills and close out your estate. Use your will or trust to direct where the actual contents of those accounts — like bank balances — should go.

3. Share logins and passwords securely

The final and arguably most critical piece: give your executor a way to actually log in. Don't put this information in your will itself, since a will becomes a public record once it's filed with probate court. Instead, use the same informal letter you used for instructions to list your accounts along with usernames and passwords. If you already use a password manager to store your logins, make sure your executor has the master password.

Without login details, your executor may still be able to get partial access. Most states now have laws letting an estate representative request access to digital assets needed to close out the estate. But that route means dealing with both probate court and the company holding the account, which adds time and complication. And it only covers what's necessary to wrap up the estate — sentimental items like a particular email, a private journal, or membership in an online community typically won't be included. A well-organized plan, with both instructions and access details, spares your executor from all of that extra work.