Before Anything Happens: Sorting Out a Parent's Accounts and Digital Wishes

The best time to sort out a parent's accounts, photos and digital wishes is on an ordinary week, while everyone is well and nobody is in a hurry. It comes down to four things: a list of what they have, the built-in tools that let a trusted person in later, a decision about what should happen to each account, and a home for the photos and voice notes that matter most. None of it needs anyone's passwords written in a shared document.

Families who skip this usually find out the hard way. After a death, a locked phone can hold years of photos, the email account is the key to everything else, and the companies involved will only help through slow, formal routes. Half an hour now saves months later.

Before you start

• A calm half-hour with your parent - and their phone, if they're happy to have it on the table.

• A notebook, or a note on your own phone.

• One thing not to do: don't ask them to read their passwords out to you. You'll set up proper access instead, and their accounts stay theirs.

It helps to open with a reason that's about you, not them: "I've just set this up on my own phone and realised I have no idea how it works for you." It is, after all, a job everyone should do for themselves.

Step 1: make a list of what they have

Not the passwords - just the map. Write down:

• Their phone and how it's unlocked, and where the main email account lives. The email matters most, because it's how almost every other account gets reset.

• Where their photos are: the phone itself, iCloud or Google Photos, an old computer, a box of prints.

• Messaging apps with things worth keeping - WhatsApp voice notes from grandchildren, family groups.

• Social media accounts.

• Banks, pensions and anything paid by subscription, so bills don't keep running unnoticed.

Keep the list somewhere safe and tell one other family member where it is.

Step 2: set up the tools that let a trusted person in

The big platforms each have their own way to name someone in advance. They're free, and they're the legitimate route - far better than a sticky note of passwords, which can break a service's terms and leave the family stuck anyway.

• Apple - add a Legacy Contact in the iPhone's Apple Account settings. That person gets an access key; after a death, the key plus a death certificate lets them request the photos, messages and files in iCloud.

• Google - the Inactive Account Manager lets your parent choose people to be notified, and what they can download, if the account has been inactive for a set time between three and eighteen months.

• Facebook - your parent can choose a legacy contact to look after a memorialised account, or ask for the account to be deleted after their death. What happens to a Facebook account when someone dies explains both.

• Password managers - if they use one, look at its own emergency option. Bitwarden (on paid plans) and LastPass let them name a trusted contact who can request access after a waiting period. 1Password has no such feature; it uses a printed Emergency Kit, which should be kept with their important papers.

Menus move around between software versions, so follow each company's current help page while you set it up.

Step 3: ask what they want done with each account

This is a short conversation, and a gentler one than it sounds. For each account: keep it as a memorial, delete it, or let the family download what matters and then close it? Should the email stay open for a while so the family can tell people? Is there anything private they'd rather nobody read?

Write the answers down in their words. In many places, a will can mention digital accounts, and the rules on who may access them after death vary - so if anything is unclear, check local rules or ask whoever is helping with their will.

Step 4: give the photos and voice notes a home now

The things families most often lose aren't the accounts - they're the photos and voices inside them. Don't wait for a crisis to move them.

• Save WhatsApp voice notes that matter before a reset phone loses them.

• Copy the photos off their phone and old computer into one place, with a second copy somewhere else.

• Make sure more than one person can get in. In a private family space like Glow, you can make a sibling an admin alongside you, and the family's photos and stories never depend on one login.

And while you're sitting together, ask one question about the photos on that phone. "Who's this?" takes a minute to answer now. Later, nobody may know.

If they'd rather not

Some people hear "digital legacy" and change the subject. Shrink it: one account this month - usually Apple or Google, because that's where the photos are. Or do it together, each on your own phone, so it's something you're both doing rather than something done to them.

This week, find out one thing: where their photos actually live. Everything else can follow from there.