How to Save a Loved One's Photos, Messages, and Voicemails After They Die
By Ari Ber · September 23, 2026
Category: Digital Legacy
The official, safe routes to save a loved one's photos, messages, and voicemails after they die - no passwords required.
Key takeaways
The problem Most families don't know the official routes to save a loved one's digital memories without their password.
Core insight Every major platform has a formal process for families - using it is safer and more reliable than guessing passwords.
Practical outcome Keep the phone charged and the line open, then work through one official route at a time.
The phone still has 11,000 photos on it, and nobody wrote down the password. That is the situation many families find themselves in within days of a death - standing in a kitchen or a spare room, holding a device that contains years of someone's life, unsure whether to touch anything at all. (When you later need a handful of them for a service, there is a separate guide to choosing memorial slideshow photos from thousands.)
This guide covers the official, safe routes to save a loved one's photos, messages and voicemails. Do the triage first, then work through the sections that match what you have in front of you.
Before you touch anything - have these ready:
The device itself, charged
A copy of the death certificate
An obituary or other proof of your relationship, if the certificate isn't ready yet
Time: some of this takes days, not minutes
Do not factory-reset the phone, change or reset any account password, delete any account, or cancel the phone line. Any of these can make data permanently unrecoverable.
The fastest safe way to save photos, messages, and voicemails
There are three safe routes. If the phone is already unlocked, make a local backup of it to a computer. For their online accounts, use the official process each platform offers bereaved families - a legacy contact the person named in advance, or a request backed by a death certificate. And save carrier voicemails before the line is closed. Never sign in to their accounts with their password or try to reset it: it breaks the platforms' terms and can lock the account for good.
Step 1: Do this first - a quick triage before anything else
Spend ten minutes on this list before you open a single settings menu.
Keep the phone charged and somewhere safe.
Write down every account you know about - email, social media, cloud storage, subscriptions.
Do not cancel the phone line yet. Carrier voicemails can disappear when the line closes.
Find out whether your person named a legacy contact with Apple, set up Google's Inactive Account Manager, or chose a legacy contact on Facebook. If they did, that is your fastest official route.
Deadlines differ by provider and change over time, so check each provider's current policy early rather than waiting.
Step 2: Back up the phone or computer if you have access
If the phone is already unlocked, connect it to a computer with a cable and make a local backup: for an iPhone, use Finder on a Mac or the device-management app on a PC and choose Back Up Now; for an Android phone, copy the DCIM folder, which holds the photos and videos, to the computer. This copies what is on the device itself. Do not sign in to their cloud accounts to do it.
Imagine sitting with the phone plugged in while the backup runs. By the time you've made a cup of tea, the photos and messages on it are copied to the computer. Then copy that backup to an external drive as well.
Step 3: Download photos and messages from Google, Apple, or Facebook
Each platform has an official route for families. Use these, not their password.
Google: if your person set up the Inactive Account Manager and named you, Google sends you a link to download the data they chose to share. If they didn't, submit Google's request for a deceased user's account with the death certificate and proof of your relationship.
Apple: a Legacy Contact requests access through Apple's Digital Legacy process using the access key - kept in the Legacy Contact's own Apple account settings, or on a printed copy - together with the death certificate.
Facebook: request memorialization. If your person named a legacy contact and allowed downloads, that legacy contact can download a copy of what they shared - posts, photos, videos and profile information. Private messages are not included.
Instagram: memorialization is requested separately, through Instagram's own Help Center.
Step 4: Request access through legacy contact or memorialization
If you are the named legacy contact, you are the one who submits the request, from your own account, with the death certificate. If no one was named, each platform has a request for a deceased person's account: you provide the death certificate and proof of your relationship. Keep a copy of everything you submit, and note the date you sent it.
Step 5: Save voicemails from your carrier
Carrier voicemails live on the carrier's servers, not on the phone, and can be deleted once the line is closed.
On iPhone, open the Phone app, tap Voicemail, choose a message, tap the share icon and save it to Files or send it to your own email.
On Android, open the voicemail app, long-press a message and look for Save or Share.
If there is no share option, call the carrier, explain that the account holder has died, and ask for the voicemails as audio files. Ask them not to close the line until the files arrive.
Step 6: Check for deleted photos or messages
On an iPhone, the Photos app keeps a Recently Deleted album for about 30 days. Check it before you assume something is gone. A local backup made earlier may also hold items deleted since. Professional data recovery exists, but it can be expensive and isn't always successful - consider it only for something irreplaceable, after the routes above.
If you don't have the password
You don't need it, and you shouldn't use it. For Google, submit the deceased-user request. For Apple, without a Legacy Contact, access generally requires a court order - worth knowing now rather than after weeks of waiting. For Facebook, request memorialization; only a legacy contact can download a copy of what was shared.
Imagine you don't have your father's password. You fill in the platform's form, attach his death certificate and a document showing your relationship, and wait. It can take a while. Keep a copy of everything.
If the account has already been deleted
Deleted accounts may be recoverable only for a short, provider-set window. Contact the platform's support immediately, explain the situation and have the death certificate ready. There are no guarantees. If the account is gone, ask family and friends for the photos and messages they have on their own phones - often more survives than you expect. Old photos shared in group chats, in particular, can add up, and letters and clippings kept by relatives are worth gathering while you still can. They can also get the older relatives who are still here talking: how old letters, clippings and photos work as memory joggers.
You don't have to rescue everything this week. Keep the phone charged, the line open, and start with one route. Once the photos are safe, consider protecting those recovered family photos from floods, fires and future moves so they don't need rescuing a second time. Glow can keep them in a private family space with guest links, on a year-by-year timeline, so the rest of the family can see them too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it legal to access someone else's account after they die?
Yes, it is legal to request a data download for a deceased person's account. Most major platforms - Google, Apple, Meta - have a formal process for next of kin or executors. You do not need to log in with their password; you submit a request with a death certificate and proof of your relationship. The platform then decides what it can share under its own policy.
What if I'm not the executor or next of kin?
Most platforms accept requests from an immediate family member, even if you are not the legal executor. You may need to provide proof of your relationship - an obituary, a birth certificate, or a letter from the estate. If there is a named legacy contact or Inactive Account Manager beneficiary, that person is the one who submits the request, regardless of their legal status in the estate.
How do I know if the person had accounts I don't know about?
Start with what you can see: their email inbox (if you can access it through a legacy process), their phone's notification history, and any saved passwords in a browser or password manager on their computer. Ask family members and close friends. Check their bank statements for recurring subscription charges - these often point to accounts that are easy to overlook.
Will I lose the photos and messages if I wait too long?
Possibly. Carrier voicemails are among the most time-sensitive, since they can disappear when the phone line is closed or the account lapses. Cloud accounts are generally safer in the short term, but policies vary by provider and can change. The safest approach is to do the triage early - keep the phone charged, keep the line open, and check each provider's current policy rather than assuming you have unlimited time.
What file formats will I receive when I download someone's data?
It depends on the platform. Google exports arrive as a ZIP file containing folders of photos, emails in .mbox format, and other data. Apple data exports are also ZIP files. Facebook and Instagram data can come as HTML files you open in a browser, or JSON files. You do not need to understand the formats to keep them safe - store the ZIP files on an external drive and in cloud storage, and you can open them later on any computer.