What Happens to Your Digital Accounts and Photos When You Die?
Think about where your life now lives: thousands of photos in a phone and cloud account, years of email, social media, music and streaming subscriptions, bank apps, and perhaps a few online accounts nobody else knows exist. When you die, none of it comes with a handover note.
For families, this is often the most painful surprise. Locked phones, forgotten passwords and photos stuck in an account no one can open are common. The good news is that a little planning prevents most of it.
Who owns your digital accounts after you die?
In Australia there is no single, simple rule. Access is largely governed by each company’s terms of service rather than by your will alone, and the law in this area is still developing. Some providers will deal with an executor who provides a death certificate and proof of authority. Others will only memorialise or close an account. Some will not release contents at all. Because this varies, treat this guide as general information and speak to a solicitor about your own situation.
The main platforms offer tools, but you have to set them up
Several large providers let you choose what happens to your account in advance. Features and names change, so check each provider’s current settings:
- Google: an inactive account setting lets you nominate people to receive some of your data if the account goes unused for a period you choose.
- Apple: a legacy contact feature lets you name someone who can request access to your account data after your death.
- Facebook and Instagram (Meta): you can choose a legacy contact or ask for your account to be deleted, and accounts can be memorialised.
If you do nothing, your family may be left to apply to each company, one at a time, during an already difficult period.
What about bank, super and insurance accounts?
These are not “digital accounts” in the same sense. Banks, super funds and insurers have their own processes through the executor. What causes delay is not knowing which ones exist. A simple list of providers and where records are kept saves weeks.
A five-step plan you can finish this week
- List your accounts. Email, cloud storage, social media, banking, super, insurance, subscriptions and anything with money attached. Names only, not passwords, in the list your family sees.
- Set up the legacy tools offered by Google, Apple and Meta, and name someone you trust.
- Decide where your photos live. Pick one main place, keep a second backup, and tell someone where it is.
- Handle passwords carefully. A reputable password manager with an emergency access option is safer than a sticky note or a shared spreadsheet.
- Tell your executor. Say where the list is and who has been nominated. Put the instruction in writing.
What not to do
Don’t put full passwords or banking details in your will. A will can become a public document once probate is granted. Don’t assume your family can simply guess a phone passcode. And don’t leave it until “later”: accounts are often locked or deleted after long periods of inactivity.
Keep it all in one place
The hard part isn’t knowing what to do. It’s keeping everything together and up to date. Many families use a secure online space where wishes, photos, life stories and the location of important documents sit side by side, and where chosen people are given access when it’s needed.
If you’d like a secure, organised place to do that, Lifebook Memories was built for exactly this.
This article is general information only and is not legal or financial advice. Provider features change, so check each provider’s current help pages.
Before publishing
- [Certain] Verify each provider feature against its current help page. I could not open sources in this run (search returned titles only).
- Link internally to Post 1 (funeral wishes) and to the sign-up page.
- Suggested sources to cite and earn trust: CHOICE and Cybershack have guides on this topic.
Queue (next 4)
- Funeral wishes vs a will: what each one does
- How to write a life story your family will actually read
- A checklist of documents your family needs after a death
- How to start the “my funeral” conversation with parents
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