Digital Estate Planning: What Happens to Your Online Life When You're Gone
If you died tomorrow, could your family get into your phone? Danielle Crittenden's couldn't. In a recent Wall Street Journal essay, she described the years-long fight that followed her 32-year-old daughter Miranda's death as "a digital haunting I had no control over."
For earlier generations, when a loved one passed away, their family was usually left with paper documents in a file cabinet, physical money at the local bank, and maybe even some old-school photo albums (remember those?). Now, we are living in an age of "digital assets," and the companies that store them are the custodians. Each one has its own rules about what they can and can't release after someone's death. "Apple gave us her photos but nothing else. Google gave us metadata, recipients, dates and subject lines of her emails, but no content. AT&T outright refused to unlock her phone," Crittenden writes.
From banking and investing to photos, emails, and social media, most of our personal and financial lives now live "in the cloud." But while many people have wills and estate plans, most haven't considered what happens to their digital life when they're gone. That very common gap can leave your family with their own digital haunting. Here's how to spare them.
The Hidden Value of Our Digital Lives
According to a Bryn Mawr Trust survey, Americans estimate their digital assets are worth, on average, over $190,000, and high-net-worth households assign even higher values. These assets include everything from financial accounts and business records to photos, messages, and online logins. Yet despite their value, most people haven’t planned for how these assets should be accessed, managed, or protected after death or incapacity.
Nearly 80% of Americans say protecting digital assets is important. The common assumption is that an executor or family member will "figure it out." In reality, they often can't.
Why Traditional Estate Planning Often Falls Short
Almost every online account you have — email, social media, cloud storage, even digital purchases — is governed by the custodian's Terms of Service. And those terms often prohibit sharing passwords or transferring accounts, even after death.
The result: loved ones get locked out of essential accounts. They may be unable to:
Access billing or financial information
Reach important contacts
Retrieve photos or personal files
Manage online businesses or subscriptions
Without a plan in place, even the most organized family will hit legal and logistical walls. The good news: most of these problems are preventable.
What is Digital Estate Planning?
Digital estate planning is the process of deciding what happens to your online accounts and digital assets when you die or become incapacitated and making sure the right people can actually carry out those decisions. At its core, it's about handing your family a set of keys instead of a locked door.
It involves:
Identifying your digital accounts and assets
Deciding who should (and should not) have access
Clearly documenting your wishes
Using legal documents and platform-specific tools (like Apple's Legacy Contact or Google's Inactive Account Manager) to back up those wishes
Knowing it matters is the easy part. Here's how to actually do something about it.
How to Get Started
As of 2024, 47 of 50 states, including Oregon and Washington, had adopted The Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Asset Act (RUFADAA). The law lets you name a "digital asset fiduciary" in your will, trust, or power of attorney: a person specifically authorized to access your digital accounts when you die or become incapacitated. The catch is that the access has to be written explicitly into those documents. Simply telling someone they're in charge isn't enough.
If you already have an estate plan, check whether it names a digital asset fiduciary. If it doesn't, that's the first revision worth making.
Beyond naming a fiduciary, here are a few other steps to round out a digital estate plan:
Make a list of your key digital accounts (financial, personal, and business) and note where login or recovery information is stored.
Decide what should happen to each account. Some you'll want transferred, others restricted, and some deleted entirely.
Use the legacy tools the platforms already offer. Google's Inactive Account Manager and Facebook's Legacy Contact let you designate someone in advance, directly through the account's settings.
Tell a trusted person the plan exists and where to find it.
A Human Perspective
Digital estate planning isn't really about passwords and accounts. It's about making sure the people who love you don't spend the worst weeks of their lives fighting tech companies for access to your photos, your email, or the parts of your business only you knew how to run. Your digital life deserves the same thoughtful attention as the rest of your estate.
If you're not sure whether your current documents address digital assets, or you'd like help thinking through what's next, we'd be glad to talk it through.
Disclosure: This material is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered personalized tax, legal, or investment advice. You should consult your own qualified tax, legal, and financial professionals before making any decisions based on this information. Tax laws and regulations, including those related to bonuses and supplemental income, are subject to change and may vary depending on individual circumstances. The examples provided are hypothetical and intended to illustrate general tax concepts; they should not be relied upon to determine your actual tax liability. Investing and financial planning involve risk, including the possible loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Advisory services are offered through Human Investing, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser.
