When someone dies, their physical belongings — the house, the car, the jewelry — go through a legal process. But what about the thousands of photos in iCloud? The 15 years of email in Gmail? The crypto wallet? The Facebook profile?

Most people have never thought about it. And most families discover — at the worst possible moment — that digital accounts are harder to access than physical ones. You can’t just call Google with a death certificate and get someone’s email password. Each platform has its own rules, its own process, and its own definition of what a family member is entitled to.

Here’s what actually happens, platform by platform — and what you can do right now to make sure your family isn’t locked out.

📧 Google (Gmail, Drive, Photos, YouTube)

Google controls a huge chunk of most people’s digital lives: email, documents, photos, calendar, contacts, and sometimes even their phone backup. When someone dies, Google offers two paths:

🍎 Apple (iCloud, Photos, Devices)

Apple introduced Legacy Contacts in iOS 15.2, which lets you designate someone who can access your Apple account data after you die. They get a special access key that, combined with a death certificate, unlocks your iCloud data.

Without a Legacy Contact set up, Apple’s process is strict. Family members must obtain a court order specifically naming them as having the right to access the account. Even then, Apple may only provide data — not account access. And the device itself? If it’s locked with a passcode or Face ID, Apple cannot and will not unlock it.

What you can access with Legacy Contact: Photos, messages, notes, files, contacts, calendars, Health data, and most iCloud content. What you can’t: Licensed media (movies, music, books), Keychain passwords, and payment information.

📘 Facebook & Instagram (Meta)

Meta gives families two options for a deceased user’s account:

Instagram follows the same process through Meta’s memorialization request form. One important note: you cannot download the deceased person’s data unless they set you as a Legacy Contact beforehand. Without that, the content stays locked on the platform.

🐦 X (formerly Twitter)

X allows a verified estate executor or immediate family member to request account deactivation by submitting a death certificate and proof of identity. There is currently no memorialization option — the account is either active or deleted.

X does not provide data downloads to family members. If you want to preserve someone’s tweets, you’d need to do so before the account is deactivated (screenshots, third-party archive tools, or Wayback Machine).

🏦 Banking & Fintech Apps

Traditional banks have well-established processes for deceased account holders — the executor provides a death certificate and letters testamentary, and the bank transfers or closes accounts. But fintech apps can be trickier.

₿ Cryptocurrency

This is the big one — and the scariest. Cryptocurrency is designed to be accessible only to the person who holds the private keys or seed phrase. There is no “forgot password” option. There is no customer service to call. If the keys are lost, the crypto is lost. Forever.

If your loved one used a centralized exchange (Coinbase, Kraken, Binance), the exchange can work with the estate — but they’ll need the same legal documentation as a bank. If the crypto was in a hardware wallet (Ledger, Trezor) or self-custody software wallet, only the seed phrase can unlock it.

🔑 Password Managers

If the deceased person used a password manager (1Password, LastPass, Bitwarden, Dashlane), accessing it is the single most important step — because it unlocks everything else.

🛡️ What You Should Do Right Now

You don’t have to solve all of this today. But these five steps will protect your family from the most common lockout scenarios:

📁 One Vault for Your Entire Digital Life

The challenge with digital estate planning is that it’s spread across dozens of platforms, each with its own rules. A central, secure record of what you have and how to access it — shared with the right people — is the single most effective thing you can do.

That’s exactly what CareTabs is designed for. Store your account inventory, login instructions, legacy contact settings, seed phrases, and digital wishes in one encrypted vault. Share access with your spouse, your adult children, or your executor — so when the time comes, nobody is locked out.