What counts as a digital legacy?
Everything you own or store online: photos and videos in the cloud, email and social media, music and film libraries, domain names, online bank and investment accounts, loyalty balances and cryptocurrency. Some of it has money value and forms part of your estate. The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 confirms that digital things can be personal property. Much of the rest, such as family photos, matters mainly to the people left behind.
Ordinary money in online banks follows the usual process for accounts after death; see bank accounts after death. Photo libraries and social accounts are governed by each provider's terms.
Which platforms have legacy tools?
| Platform | Tool | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | Legacy Contact | Lets chosen people access data such as photos, messages, notes and files after your death. They need the access key and a death certificate. Purchased media and Keychain passwords are excluded. |
| Inactive Account Manager | Shares chosen data with up to 10 trusted contacts, or notifies them, after your account has been inactive for a period you set. | |
| Legacy contact | Lets you choose someone to look after your account if it is memorialised. |
Check each provider's page for current details, because features change. Google says it may delete an account that has been inactive for at least two years if no plan is set up.
What happens to cryptocurrency when you die?
It forms part of your estate and passes under your will or the intestacy rules. Access is the practical problem. Crypto held with an exchange or app may be claimable through that provider's process for deceased customers. Crypto in a wallet you control may be impossible to reach without the private key or recovery phrase.
Keep recovery details secure, make sure your executor knows the assets exist, and leave instructions for finding them. Do not write keys or recovery phrases into the will: a will usually becomes a public record after probate, and copies can be ordered through GOV.UK's probate records search.
What can an executor do with digital accounts?
Your executor deals with your estate, but that does not automatically give them the right to log in to your accounts. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 makes it an offence to access data knowing the access is unauthorised, and providers' terms usually decide who is authorised. The safe route is each provider's deceased-user process, which the legacy tools above are designed to make easier.
How do you leave a digital legacy that works?
- Make a list of important accounts, devices and wallets, kept in a password manager or secure record.
- Switch on legacy tools for the platforms you use most.
- Keep instructions separate from your will, stored where your executors will find them; see where to store a will.
- Tell your executor the list exists. They need to know where to look, not your passwords today.
- Review it when you change devices or open new accounts.
A letter of wishes can explain what you would like done with accounts, and the executor handover template is a private place to record where things are. If you list significant digital assets in the SwiftWill interview, the will records that they exist so your executors know to look for them, without including any passwords or access details.
Sources
- Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025, section 1 (Royal Assent 2 December 2025)
- Computer Misuse Act 1990, section 1
- GOV.UK: Search probate records
- Apple: How to add a Legacy Contact
- Google: About Inactive Account Manager
- Facebook: Legacy contacts
Sources checked 24 September 2026.