Planning for our death

PLANNING FOR OUR DEATH

TOPICS BELOW
What To Pass Along, Planning For Change, USB Flash Drive, Secure Cloud Storage, Bureaucracy, Apple, Individual Companies, Assorted Articles

As the saying goes, there is no avoiding death and taxes. This page is not about taxes.

WHAT TO PASS ALONG

Step 1 is deciding who to trust. Hopefully, this is an easy decision. Then comes the issue of what data/files your survivors need. This will be different for different people. Here is a starter list:

Give the trusted person(s) access to your primary email account(s)
Tell the trusted person(s) how to log into your devices (desktop computer, laptop, tablet and/or phone)
Give them the passwords for your financial services, be they apps or websites.
Apple users should provide their trusted people with both their AppleID userid/password and their iPhone unlock code.

If your passwords are stored on paper, xerox the paper and give the copy to your trusted person. Of, if you use a password manager, maybe print the passwords using the software and, again, give that to your trusted person.

Techies that own a domain and/or own a website, need to make special provisions. Both will be lost if the payments are not kept up.

PLANNING FOR CHANGE top

The problem with making plans is that the world is always changing. New accounts get created, old ones get closed.
BIG CHANGE: Perhaps you no longer trust the person you used to trust.
SMALL CHANGE: passwords get changed.

What to do in 10 or 20 years when you no longer trust the person you gave all your passwords to? No one wants to always be giving new accounts and updated passwords to their trusted person.

One future proof solution: If you use a Password Manager you could give your trusted person the master password. This way as new accounts are created and passwords are changed on old accounts, the trusted person does not have to know or care. This also solves the bigger issue, of no longer trusting someone. Should this happen, simply change the master password and give the new one to your newly trusted person. The no-long-trusted person will have no idea you did this, at least not for a while.

USB FLASH DRIVE top

One solution, discussed at the AskWoody.com Forum, (April 2025) is to put all the information that needs to be passed on after your death, onto a USB flash drive and make a couple flash drives. A big upside is that all the information is in one place, so the grieving people you leave behind do not need to hunt all over for things.

Needless to say this information needs to be encrypted and password protected. Towards that end, I think the KeePass password manager is the way to go. I say this because there are versions of KeePass for every operating system. You could even download versions of KeePass or other compatible password managers (that is, software that can read/write to a KDBX file) and store them on the USB flash drive. KeePass is also free.

The obvious downside to this approach is that when something changes, multiple flash drives, in multiple locations need to be updated. A less obvious downside is that the quality of USB flash drives varies. If you just buy a cheap one, you could be setting yourself up for failure. See the page here on USB Flash Drives for more.

An even less obvious downside is the lifespan of data stored on a flash drive. The nature of the technology is such that an unused flash drive can start corrupting data. I have seen many recommendations for spinning mechanical hard drives when you want the stored data to last for many years. Finally, a flash drive is easily lost or mis-placed.

SECURE CLOUD STORAGE top

Another solution is to store the critical data/files/images in the cloud. Not just anywhere, of course, but with a company that offers secure file storage. By that I mean a company that can not read your files. The page here on Secure File Storage goes into more detail. Among the companies offering secure storage are Proton Drive, Tresorit and Sync.com.

I would suggest storing nothing in this account except the data you want your survivors to have access to. Periodically log into the account (every 6 months?) just to make sure all is well.

Upsides: changes are easy to make, there is nothing physical to lose, stored data should not rot, checking on things is easy.

For the ultimate security, don't just store files in their native format, store them in the cloud inside a KeePass compatible KDBX file as suggested above. This means that accessing the files requires two passwords. This also means that you can store different files for different people. While multiple people may be able to access the secure cloud account, each person would have their own KDBX file with its own master password.

BUREAUCRACY top

Some companies have a whole system created for passing the control of an account after someone has died. I can't see that any of them are worth bothering with. We all deal with many different companies, no one deals with just one tech company. It seems better to pass the critical information one way rather than deal with multiple systems and their inherent red tape.

Apple has a system called Legacy Contact, or, Digital Legacy. Two names for the name system or two different systems? I don't know and I don't care as this just proves my point, not to use either. Both Facebook and Instagram also have a "legacy contact" system. The Google entry in this arena is their inactive account manager. YouTube also allows users to assign an Inactive Account Manager. Microsoft has no such system, that I am aware of.

APPLE top

You can save your loved ones grief, if you share with them your iPhone passcode and/or your iCloud credentials. Apple has a complicated system, called Digital Legacy, for allowing your survivors access to most, but not all, of your data.

Apple Digital Legacy was introduced in iOS 15.2 and macOS Monterey 12.1. On iOS its at: Settings -> Your name -> Password & Security -> Legacy Contact. Your Legacy Contact(s) can be anyone, they do not need an Apple ID or an Apple device. There can be up to five contacts. Apple creates an "Access Key" which the surviving person needs to store, and not lose. To get your data, the survivor has to contact Apple, provide a death certificate and hope that Apple approves it. The survivor does not get iCloud Keychain, payment information, subscriptions, and licensed media.

It strikes me as ridiculous to assume that this system will still be in place, unchanged, in 5, 10, 20 or 30 years. Probably better to just share passwords.

APPLE DEATH ARTICLES

February 26, 2025: Take Control of Your Apple Account an eBook by Glenn Fleishman. Sold for $15 in June 2025.
November 13, 2024: How to add a Legacy Contact for your Apple Account from Apple. Also covers removing the Legacy Contact.
October 14, 2024: How to request access to a deceased family member’s Apple Account from Apple. Quoting: "While we may also be able to help remove Activation Lock from devices that use your loved one’s original Apple Account, their iPhone, iPod, and iPad will need to be restored to factory settings before they can be used with another Apple Account. Please note that devices locked with a passcode are protected by passcode encryption, and Apple can’t help remove the passcode lock without erasing the device."
October 8, 2024: Data that a Legacy Contact can access from Apple. Also, what they can not access.
June 13, 2022: How to access iPhone content when someone passes away by Joseph Keller and Adam Oram for iMore. Without the passcode Apple won't (and often can't) unlock an iPhone. If you don't know your loved one's iCloud password but you do have access to their iCloud email address/userid, you could use that email to reset the password for the iCloud account.
May 10, 2022: How to set up a Legacy Contact on iPhone and iPad by Adam Oram for iMore. Has many screen shots of the process.
December 2021: The iPhone Feature to Turn On Before You Die by Joanna Stern in the Wall Street Journal. Written for iOS version 15.

INDIVIDUAL COMPANIES top

Google has controls for Inactive accounts. You must be signed in to your Google account to see these controls.

About legacy contacts on Facebook. from Facebook. Undated. Quoting: "A legacy contact is someone you choose to look after your main profile if it's memorialized after you've passed away. If you add a legacy contact, that person will be able to make decisions about your main profile once it is memorialized."

ASSORTED ARTICLES top

June 25, 2025: A Loved One Dies. No One Knows Their Passwords. Here’s What to Do. by Haley Perry for the Wirecutter division of the New York Times. Lessons learned by someone after their father died. Good article. Quotes: "Unfortunately, there’s no universal solution for managing the digital portion of a person’s estate. Not only do digital-estate laws vary by state, but every single website and company you open an account with has its own privacy policy that could supersede those laws - and ultimately bar you from gaining access after someone’s death . . . Even if you do have the password, note that logging in to someone else's computer or online account is illegal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act . . . Start by requesting certified copies of the death certificate as soon as possible."

June 23, 2025: The afterlife of Apple Accounts (and others) by Glenn Fleishman. Excellent article that includes this: "Across the last several years, 47 U.S. states, D.C., and one territory have adopted the Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, Revised, or RUFADAA for short. This provides a near-universal legal standard for how you write your digital bequests or disposal requests into a will . . . Update your will to meet the provisions of RUFADAA. Any lawyer who creates wills should know all about it; if not, you likely need a different person."

Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, Revised at UniformLaws.org. Link from the above article by Glenn Fleishman.

February 21, 2025: Encryption isn't wise by Susan Bradley for Ask Woody. Quoting: "... encryption is a very bad idea if you've made no plans for someone else to ... handle getting back into a 'thing' that is encrypted. I can't tell you how many times I’ve been asked how to remove an encryption password from an Excel file that someone used to store their passwords." A short article from someone who's father is 97 and clearly thinking about these things.

June 6, 2024: You can inherit a dead relative's GOG account - if you have a court order by Kyle Orland for Ars Technica. Gaming platform GOG is ready and willing to help users transfer their accounts in the event of their death. Not so much, Steam. The take away from this is to follow the advice at the top of the page, as dealing with individual companies and their unique rules and policies just makes a bad situation worse.

February 2, 2024: Take Control of Your Digital Legacy eBook by Joe Kissell. Second Edition. In June 2025, it was selling for $15. From the publisher: "We hope, but do not promise, to publish that update in the first half of 2025. The update will be free to everyone who already owns the second edition of the book".

December 9, 2023: Your loved ones need access to your phone once you've passed away by Jerry Hildenbrand for Android Central. The first hand experiences of a techie whose father just passed away. He suggests using the systems created by Google or Apple for handling this, I disagree.

April 22, 2023: Before You Die, Secure Your Digital Life by Julie Jargon for the Wall Street Journal (so paywall). Ms. Jargon says that it is not enough to keep a list of account passwords, because you might forget to update it. Still, this is the far better option than all the other stuff in this article. It starts with how a few password managers let you designate someone to get your passwords when you die. To me, this is too complicated. And, you may change password manager software in the future. It is far better to write the down the master password for the password manager. The article also discusses "legacy contacts" for Apple, Google and Facebook. Here too, these systems strike me as way too complicated for someone grieving to deal with. Again, better to just write down the passwords somewhere that your loved ones know where they are.

May 8, 2023: How do social media platforms deal with dead users' accounts? by Diego Mendoza for Semafor.

May 8, 2023: Planning for the final digital divide by Susan Bradley for AskWoody.com. This is behind a paywall.

December 28, 2022: 6 easy fixes to avoid tech headaches in 2023 by Heather Kelly for the Washington Post. Topics in the article include preparing for your death.