Your Digital Legacy: What Happens to Your Email, Photos and Crypto When You're Gone?

Your grandmother left photo albums. You'll leave 40,000 photos in iCloud, an inbox with twenty years of correspondence, a password manager, and maybe some crypto. Here's the uncomfortable truth: none of it passes down automatically — and without preparation, much of it gets locked forever.

Why your family can't just "log in"

Federal privacy law and platform terms of service prohibit accessing someone else's account, even after death. Most states have adopted RUFADAA (the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act), which lets a fiduciary request access — but only if you've authorized it in advance, through the platform's own tool or your estate documents. No authorization, no access. Families have litigated for years to recover a deceased child's photos.

The four tools to set up (it takes about an hour)

• Apple Digital Legacy — designate a Legacy Contact; they receive an access key. Without it, Apple requires a court order.
• Google Inactive Account Manager — decide who gets your Gmail, Drive and Photos after a period of inactivity.
• Facebook/Instagram Legacy Contact — choose who can memorialize or delete your profiles.
• Password manager emergency access — 1Password, Bitwarden and others let a trusted person request access after a waiting period.

Crypto: the highest stakes of all

There is no customer service for a seed phrase. An estimated 20% of all Bitcoin is already lost forever — much of it because the holder died without sharing recovery details. If you hold crypto, your recovery phrase needs a documented, secure location your executor can find: a safe deposit box, a home safe, or a sealed envelope with your attorney. Never in plain text in your email.

Write it down — in one place

Tools are half the battle; the other half is a written inventory your family can find: which accounts exist, where the backups are, who the legacy contacts are. Chapter 6 of The Legacy Book walks you through your complete digital inventory — and the Digital Legacy Quick-Start bonus guide (included free during launch week) gives you the 60-minute, step-by-step setup for every platform above, with screenshots.

One hour today. Decades of memories saved for the people who'll want them most.