If something happened to you tomorrow, could your family log into your email? Cancel the streaming subscriptions? Find the crypto wallet? Recover the photos on your phone? For most people the honest answer is no — and the resulting mess falls on the people already grieving.
Digital estate planning is the small amount of work you do now so that doesn't happen. It's not morbid, and it isn't a full afternoon with a lawyer. This checklist walks through the nine things you can sort out this weekend, in the order that matters.
1. Why digital estate planning matters now
The average adult has somewhere between 100 and 200 online accounts. A meaningful share of your finances, memories, and daily life lives behind logins that only you know how to reach. When you die or become incapacitated, none of that is automatically accessible to your family — even to your spouse, even with a death certificate.
Platforms are cautious for good reason: they can't tell a grieving spouse from a scammer with the same story. So they default to no. Digital estate planning shifts that default. You decide in advance who gets what, and you leave behind enough information for them to actually act on it.
2. Take inventory — the 9 categories
Before you can hand anything off, you need to know what you have. Work through these nine categories in order — the earlier ones unlock the later ones.
Email accounts (the master key)
Your primary email is the recovery route for almost every other account. If someone controls it, they can reset most of your logins. Write down the address and current password for each email account you actively use — personal, work, and any old addresses still receiving mail from banks or services. Enable two-factor authentication if you haven't; then note where the second factor lives (which phone, which authenticator app, which backup codes).
Password manager
If you don't use a password manager yet, this is the single highest-leverage step in the whole checklist — install 1Password, Bitwarden, or the manager built into your browser and let it start capturing your logins. Your family only needs one credential: the master password (or the emergency kit / recovery code the manager provides). All the rest travels with it.
Cloud storage (Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive)
Documents, tax records, scans of important paperwork, and often years of photos live here. Note which service holds what, and whether the login is the same as one of your emails. iCloud specifically has a Legacy Contact feature — designate one now in Settings → your name → Sign-In & Security.
Social media
Each major platform handles death differently, and you can pre-configure most of them today. Facebook lets you name a Legacy Contact who can memorialize the account. Instagram allows memorialization on request. Google's Inactive Account Manager will forward or delete your Google data after a period of inactivity you set. LinkedIn and X require the family to request removal after the fact. Pick a policy for each — memorialize, delete, or hand off — and set what you can now.
Financial accounts and crypto keys
Banks and brokerages transfer via the will and the death certificate — your executor doesn't need your online banking password, and you should not write it down alongside the will. Crypto is different: without the seed phrase or the wallet password, the coins are gone forever. Write the seed phrase down on paper, store it somewhere your executor can access (a safe, a safe deposit box), and note in your estate documents that it exists and where to find it.
Subscriptions and recurring bills
Netflix, Spotify, cloud storage, domain renewals, the gym, the meal-kit box, the AI service you signed up for last month. List them so someone can cancel them; unmanaged, they'll keep charging a card that may itself pass through probate. A quick way to find them: search your email for 'receipt', 'invoice', and 'renewal'.
Domains, websites, and hosting
If you own a domain — even one you're not actively using — it needs to renew or it disappears. List every registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, Cloudflare) and every host. If you run a website, blog, or online store, decide whether it should continue, be archived, or be shut down, and leave the credentials with whoever will execute that choice.
Photos and personal media
This is often the item families care about most. Photos live in more places than people realize: your phone, your cloud, an old external drive, tagged on social media. Consolidate what you can into one cloud service (iCloud, Google Photos), and mention specifically in your instructions that you want your family to have access to it — otherwise they may not know it exists.
Devices (phone, laptop, tablet)
Modern phones and laptops are encrypted by default. Without the passcode, the data is unrecoverable — Apple and Google will not unlock a device even for a next of kin. Write down the passcode / login PIN for each device, and if you use disk encryption (FileVault, BitLocker), record the recovery key too.
3. Document access safely
There's a real tension here. You want your family to be able to get in — but you don't want any of this floating around while you're still very much alive.
A good rule of thumb: write down the minimum needed to unlock the maximum. In practice that's usually:
- The password manager master password (or emergency kit)
- Your primary email password and where the 2FA lives
- Device passcodes and disk encryption keys
- Crypto seed phrases
Everything else can be reached from those. Store the document itself somewhere that isn't just a Post-it on your monitor — options range from a physical safe or safe deposit box, to a sealed envelope with your attorney, to an encrypted digital vault designed for exactly this purpose.
4. Choose the right people
Three roles show up in most digital estate plans, and they're often (but not always) the same person:
Executor
Legally administers your estate through probate. Named in your will.
Digital heir / trusted contact
The person who actually gets your logins, accounts, and files. Often a spouse or adult child. Doesn't have to be the executor.
Beneficiary
Someone who inherits a specific asset — money, a domain, the family photo library. You can have many, and different beneficiaries for different things.
Tell them, in plain words, that you've named them and where to find the information. A locked box helps no one if nobody knows it exists.
5. The legal wrapper
This isn't legal advice, and every jurisdiction is different. But two things are worth knowing:
In the United States, a law called RUFADAA (the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act) has been adopted in most states. It lets you grant your executor legal access to your digital accounts through your will — but only if you explicitly say so. A modern will drafted by an estate attorney will include this language; an older one may not. Worth a five-minute check.
Every platform has its own rules that can override the will. Facebook won't hand over the account contents to your executor, period — but they'll memorialize it and let a Legacy Contact manage it. Apple's Digital Legacy program lets a named contact request access to your iCloud after your death. Google's Inactive Account Manager runs automatically. Set these platform-level preferences in addition to — not instead of — the legal document.
6. Automate the handoff
The weakness in every paper-based plan is that it depends on someone knowing to look for it. The document in the safe doesn't help if your spouse doesn't know the safe exists, or where the key is, or that it's their job to open it.
This is where a "dead man's switch" service — like HeirLock — earns its keep. You upload the sensitive information once, name your beneficiaries, and pick a check-in interval (weekly, monthly, quarterly). As long as you check in on schedule, nothing happens. If you stop — because you can't — the service waits out a grace period, notifies the people you named, and delivers exactly the items you assigned to each of them. No paperwork, no probate, no one needs to remember the plan existed.
HeirLock is $9/month or $89/year with a 14-day free trial. Encrypted vault, up to 15 beneficiaries, custom schedule, cancel anytime.
See pricing7. Printable checklist
Copy this and work through it — one line per weekend if you need to.
- Install a password manager and start using it
- Write down the master password and store it safely
- List every email account and enable 2FA
- Note where the 2FA second factor lives
- Designate legacy contacts on Facebook, iCloud, and Google
- Write down crypto seed phrases (paper, safe)
- List every recurring subscription
- List every domain and registrar with renewal dates
- Consolidate photos into one cloud service
- Write down device passcodes and disk encryption keys
- Name a digital heir and tell them
- Check your will for RUFADAA language (US)
- Set up an automated handoff so nothing depends on memory
8. FAQ
Is this the same as a will?
No. A will handles legal ownership of your assets — money, property, physical belongings. A digital estate plan is about access: the passwords, keys, and instructions your family needs to actually reach the things the will assigns to them. You want both.
Can I just give my spouse all my passwords now?
You can, but it ages badly. Passwords change, 2FA moves, accounts get added. Anything static becomes stale within months. A password manager they can inherit — or a service that always holds the current version — is more resilient.
What about my crypto?
Crypto is the most fragile category. Exchange accounts (Coinbase, Kraken) can eventually be recovered by an executor with a death certificate. Self-custody wallets cannot — without the seed phrase, the coins are permanently inaccessible. Write the seed phrase down, on paper, and store it where your executor can find it.
How often should I update it?
Once a year, plus after any major life event: marriage, divorce, a new child, a new job, moving countries. A calendar reminder on your birthday works well.
What if I don't want my family reading my messages?
Assign specific items to specific people. A good digital vault lets you say 'my spouse gets the finance folder; my sister gets the photo folder; nobody gets the messages folder.' Nothing forces you to hand over everything to everyone.
Ready to actually do it?
Set up your HeirLock vault in about 5 minutes. Store the checklist items, name your beneficiaries, and let the check-in schedule take care of the rest.
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