---
title: "Digital Legacy: A Guide for Families, From Locked Phones to Saved Voices"
description: "What a digital legacy holds, the official routes Apple, Google, Microsoft and password managers allow, and how to save the meaning behind the files as well as the files."
author: "The Glow Editors"
category: "Digital Legacy"
date: 2026-10-30T10:00:03.321Z
canonical: "https://tryglow.ai/blog/digital-legacy-the-complete-guide-for-families"
---

# Digital Legacy: A Guide for Families, From Locked Phones to Saved Voices

![mining, serifos, ore mining](https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2022/12/22/10/14/mining-7671915_1280.jpg?w=1200&q=75)

> What a digital legacy holds, the official routes Apple, Google, Microsoft and password managers allow, and how to save the meaning behind the files as well as the files.

The phone is on the table and it will not open. Nobody can say which email account held the family photographs. This is how many households first meet a digital legacy: suddenly, in the hardest week of their year.

What follows is a map. It names the official route each big company allows, the few papers worth preparing, and the thing no company can do for you, which is to say what the files mean. Each part links to a longer page.

Nothing here is legal advice. Policies shift, and they differ between countries, so open the linked help page for your own region. A will, an estate or a dispute needs a lawyer who handles probate.

## If you are standing in this right now

Leave the phone as it is. Resetting it wipes what you want. Do not try passwords one after another, since a run of wrong tries can lock a device or an account permanently. Plug it in so it does not die. Look for any sign that your relative picked a legacy contact. Ask the funeral director or the registrar for several copies of the death certificate, because providers want one.

After that, pick one job and stop for the day. There is no deadline in this guide that grief cannot outlast. For specific situations, try [our notes on the first weeks](/first-weeks-after-a-parent-dies), the page on [opening a parent's phone](/how-to-get-into-a-parents-phone-after-they-die-and-what-to-save-first), and the explainer on [Google Photos and iCloud after a death](/what-happens-to-a-parents-google-photos-and-icloud-when-they-die).

## Keys on one side, meaning on the other

People mean many things by the phrase. In practice it covers photographs, messages, documents, subscriptions and voice recordings, held in accounts and on devices. [This short page](/what-is-a-digital-legacy-and-what-is-in-yours) sorts them into types.

Two different questions sit inside it.

- **Entry.** Who may open an account, and by which door does the company permit it?

- **Understanding.** Which items hold a life, and who is left who knows what they show?

Company tools answer only the first. An opened photo library is still a pile of strangers until someone who loved them names the faces.

## Start with a sheet of paper

Take ten minutes. Make five columns: memories, conversations, money and paperwork, public profiles, keys. Fill each with the accounts you actually use. Memories are photo libraries, voicemails and old video. Conversations are email and chat. Keys are the phone passcode, the password manager and your main email.

Circle the main email. So many services send their password resets there that losing it can strand everything else.

## What each company will actually do

Every major provider has an approved door. Walk through that one. A borrowed password usually breaks the terms, and it can lock the account. The summaries below come from the providers' own pages, and each carries the warning that rules vary by country.

### On an iPhone or Mac

Apple lets a person name a Legacy Contact in advance, and its [setup guide for Legacy Contacts](https://support.apple.com/en-us/102631) says what that person can reach. After a death they present an access key made at setup together with a death certificate. Reachable data may include photos, messages, notes, files and backups. Out of reach are purchased movies, music, books and subscriptions, and the iCloud Keychain where passwords and passkeys live. A contact need not own an Apple device. If you name more than one, any single contact can make decisions on their own, deletion included. Our [walk-through of the Legacy Contact](/apple-legacy-contact) shows the screens.

No contact named? Apple runs a separate process for [requests about a deceased relative's account](https://support.apple.com/en-us/102431). It checks legal paperwork first, usually a death certificate and in some cases a court order, and the list varies by country. A phone locked with a passcode remains protected by its encryption. Apple says it cannot lift the passcode without erasing the phone.

### With a Gmail or Google account

The person plans ahead through the [Inactive Account Manager](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546). They pick how long the account may sit unused, then up to ten people receive chosen parts of the data, and different people can get different parts. Some information is not shareable at all. If nothing was set up, relatives can start from [Google's form for a deceased user's account](https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/6357590), which handles closing an account, claiming funds and asking for content. Google states that it will not hand over passwords or other login details, and it reviews every request closely.

### With Outlook, Hotmail or OneDrive

Microsoft is the strictest of these. Its [page for when an account holder has died](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/accessing-outlook-com-onedrive-and-other-microsoft-services-when-someone-has-died-ebbd2860-917e-4b39-9913-212362da6b2f) says there is no need to notify the company. Someone who knows the sign-in can close the account. Otherwise the account closes itself after two years unused, while Outlook.com and OneDrive freeze after one. Seeing the contents needs a valid subpoena or court order served on Microsoft, and even a court order may not lead to release. Rules differ in Europe.

### Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp

Each has its own memorial or removal path, and none copies another. Start with [what becomes of a Facebook account](/facebook-account-after-death), and read about [rescuing WhatsApp voice notes](/how-to-save-whatsapp-voice-notes-from-someone-you-love-before-theyre-lost). Expect to prove the death.

## The password manager deserves its own plan

If one app stores the other keys, it is the account to prepare first, and the two big names do it differently.

Bitwarden offers [Emergency Access](https://bitwarden.com/help/emergency-access/) to premium customers, family plans included. The owner invites a trusted person with a Bitwarden account, choosing view-only or full takeover. Takeover swaps in a new master password and clears earlier two-step settings. When the contact asks, the owner can approve, or a waiting period the owner set earlier simply runs out. The owner can say no in that window.

1Password cannot reset or recover your account password or Secret Key, so the answer lies in the [Emergency Kit](https://support.1password.com/emergency-kit/). It is a PDF that lists your sign-in address, email and Secret Key, with room for the password. Print it, store it somewhere safe such as a deposit box, and hand one copy to a person you trust. On a family plan, [1Password's family recovery steps](https://support.1password.com/family-recovery-plan) recommend a second organizer, since the first cannot restore their own login. Our longer comparison is at [emergency access for your family](/password-manager-emergency-access-for-your-family).

## The code that goes to a dead phone

A second sign-in step guards an account from strangers. It can shut out the people left behind too. In October 2024, CBS Sacramento reported on a husband who [could not enter a shared email because its codes went to his late wife's old number](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/rocklin-widower-email-2-step-authentication-email-problems/), and dozens of calls changed nothing.

Two habits head this off. Prefer an authenticator app that can run on several devices. And generate backup codes: Google notes you may [print or download a set of eight-digit codes](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185839) for safekeeping, and warns never to hand them to anyone. Write where they are on your page of keys. For case-by-case advice, see [what happens to two-factor on a loved one's phone](/two-factor-authentication-and-a-loved-ones-phone-after-death).

## A page of keys and a folder of papers

The page is short. It says where the Emergency Kit is stored, where the backup codes are, who knows how to open the phone, and who has been told. It lists no individual site passwords. File it with your will and other important papers.

The folder is for documents: insurance policies, bank names, advisers, medical wishes, and people to call. Ready.gov, the US preparedness site, recommends you [collect personal, household and medical records](https://www.ready.gov/financial-preparedness) ahead of trouble because that speeds recovery. Use our [checklist for the emergency folder](/family-emergency-information-folder-checklist) to fill it.

One US state offers a useful model. New York's Department of State advises that families [order ten or more certified death certificates](https://dos.ny.gov/key-steps-protecting-deceased-loved-ones-identity) and keep birth dates and service times out of an obituary, as thieves read them. Check your own jurisdiction for equivalents.

A will decides who gets what, yet it seldom mentions passwords, photographs or someone's wishes in their own words. A letter can. The differences are laid out in [letters of wishes against wills and ethical wills](/letter-of-wishes-vs-will-vs-ethical-will), and [the question of who inherits the photos](/the-will-covers-the-house-who-keeps-the-photos) gets its own page. In the US, the Uniform Law Commission wrote a [model act on access to digital assets](https://www.uniformlaws.org/committees/community-home?CommunityKey=f7237fc4-74c2-4728-81c6-b39a91ecdf22). Many states adopted versions that differ in the detail, so ask a lawyer which applies.

## Where we would spend the first hour

Most checklists begin with switches: add this contact, flip that setting. Switches are quick, which explains the order. We think it should be reversed. A name in a menu helps no one if nobody knows it exists, and the sad cases above were not missing features. A code went to a dead number. A key sat in a drawer nobody opened. A relative did not know there was a plan.

So talk first. Spend five minutes telling one person that a plan exists and where the paper is. Then do the settings. A family where everyone is easy with technology and checks in each month can relax about this. Few families fit that description.

## A plan that fits in one evening

If the list above feels long, here is a short version for an adult planning for themselves. It does not need to be perfect to help the people who will use it.

- Name a Legacy Contact on your phone, and a trusted contact on your Google account.

- Print the password manager's emergency document, or set up its emergency access.

- Write the page of keys by hand. Say where the phone passcode is kept.

- Choose one photograph and one voice recording you would hate to lose, and copy each to a second place.

- Tell the person who matters. Then put a note in your calendar to look at all of it again next year.

The same list works for helping a parent, with one difference. It must be done together, with their permission, and at a pace they choose. Nobody should feel their phone is being taken away. Many older people agree more readily once they hear that the aim is to keep their photographs safe, not to manage their affairs.

## Keep the story with the file

Entry opens the library. Understanding tells people what to look for. The Library of Congress reminds us that [photographs are unique, and their information cannot be replaced once lost](https://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/photos.html). Its method is plain. Locate every place you hold photos, choose the ones that matter, give them clear names and tags, and store copies apart from one another. The step no tool does is to add who, where and why. Further help: [keeping photos, messages and voicemails](/save-loved-ones-photos-messages-voicemails), [a parent's voicemails](/how-to-save-a-parents-voicemails-after-they-die) and [a plan for family stories that gets done](/how-to-preserve-family-stories-a-simple-plan-that-actually-gets-done).

Voices need extra care. Many people say a recording is what they miss most. Keep the original file, ask before you record, and note who may listen. Glow stores genuine recordings next to the stories, under the family's control, and it will never synthesise a voice. A synthetic voice is not the person. Ten minutes with a living parent beats any attempt to rebuild a voice afterwards.

## When it all feels too much

If grief is more than you can hold, tell somebody today. Americans can call or text 988. In the UK and Ireland, the Samaritans answer at 116 123. In other countries, findahelpline.com lists services by place.

## More pages on this subject

- [A glossary of the terms](/digital-legacy-glossary)

- [Going through a parent's accounts and wishes](/sorting-a-parents-accounts-and-digital-wishes)

- [Raising power of attorney with your parents](/power-of-attorney-conversation-with-parents)

- [A quarter-hour setup that covers the basics](/the-15-minute-digital-legacy-setup-legacy-contact-inactive-account-manager-and-one-printed-page)

## A first step this evening

Name a Legacy Contact on your iPhone, or switch on Google's Inactive Account Manager. Afterwards, tell one person what you did.

## FAQ

### What happens to my accounts if I do nothing?

It depends on the provider. Some accounts stay locked until the family proves the death and meets the provider's rules, and some close after a period of inactivity. Photos and messages kept nowhere else can be lost.

### Can I just give my family my passwords?

Many providers do not allow anyone to sign in as another person, and wrong guesses can lock an account. Use the provider's legacy tool where one exists, and keep the master keys on a printed page with someone you trust.

### Does a legacy contact get everything?

No. Apple and Google both limit what a contact can reach. Apple, for example, excludes purchased media and iCloud Keychain data.

### How often should I review the plan?

Once a year is enough. Check that your contacts are still the right people and that the printed page is current.


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Source: https://tryglow.ai/blog/digital-legacy-the-complete-guide-for-families