An average person nowadays has between seventy and a hundred online accounts. When someone passes away, they all simply continue to exist — and that's exactly where next of kin run into trouble. Not with the will or the funeral, but with the question: how do I access their email?
This article sets out what really happens, and what you can arrange now.
The accounts remain active. Often for years.
An online account is not automatically closed when someone passes away. Your mailbox continues to receive mail, subscriptions keep being charged, cloud storage continues to send invoices. Some services have a procedure for next of kin, but it almost always requires a death certificate, an application form and patience — sometimes weeks or months.
The difference lies in whether someone has the password. With access, it's a matter of minutes. Without access, it becomes an administrative procedure per service.
What the major services handle themselves
**Google** has an inactivity manager: you set how many months without activity a trusted contact should be notified, and what they can then see. You have to set this up yourself — it doesn't happen automatically.
**Apple** has a legacy contact: you designate someone who can access your iCloud with a key and a death certificate. You also set this up during your lifetime.
**Facebook and Instagram** have a memorialization status. A designated contact can manage the page but doesn't get access to your messages.
**Banks and insurers** work exclusively through official channels: death certificate, declaration of inheritance rights, and only then access. Sharing passwords doesn't help legally here — but it does help next of kin know which accounts exist.
Where things go wrong in practice
Almost never with the major services. Things go wrong with the small things: the PIN code of a phone where all your photos are. The password of the password manager, where all other passwords are stored. The email address where the bank's two-step verification goes. One missing key then blocks dozens of other doors.
And something people often forget: next of kin usually don't even know which accounts exist. A subscription that runs for years because nobody knew it existed is more the rule than the exception.
What you can arrange now
Set up your settings at Google and Apple correctly — that takes ten minutes and is free. After that, make a list of what really matters: which accounts exist, which costs continue, and where are the things you don't want to lose.
That list is exactly what you don't want to put in an email or notes app. That's what an encrypted vault is for: the content is encrypted in your own browser with a passphrase only you know, and only comes to the person you've designated. You can read how that encryption works at security.
What you can also do is explain why something is important. A list of passwords is practical; a message along with it in which you explain which photos you want to see preserved and which account hasn't been used for years, saves your next of kin the most work.
Start small
You don't have to arrange everything today. Start with the three keys that unlock everything: your phone, your main email address and your password manager. Whoever has those three can access everything. You can comfortably add the rest when it suits you.