When Mom died, she had emails in her inbox that went unanswered because we didn’t have any passwords. No one likes to talk about passwords before we pass away, but these tools can help make things easier for your loved ones to manage your digital life.
Everplans
End-of-Life Document and Information Organizer
You’ll be doing your family members a favor if you take the time to assemble the information that Everplans recommends. The site will help you create a personalized list of tasks and resources that you own in all kinds of corners of the internet and beyond, such as financial information, medical records, online accounts and legal documents. Everplans also lets you write letters to loved ones that will be sent after, well, you know.
SecureSafe
Super-Secure Online Storage Platform with “Data Inheritance”
If you’d rather think about this process as creating an online safe instead of creating a death plan, check out SecureSafe. It’s a password manager and online storage system with extra secure protection. Many individuals and businesses choose SecureSafe over regular file backup tools like Dropbox and Google Drive because of the data inheritance capabilities.
Other Safeguards
Everyone has heard stories of battles with social media companies and cloud-based services to get access to a deceased family member’s device or account. Because of the outcry, almost every name-brand digital company has tools in place to handle the handover of accounts to a loved one following a death. You’ll have to dig around on each platform to find the settings. Facebook lets you appoint a legacy contact, or people can provide proof of a Facebook account holder’s death to memorialize the page. You can also request that your page be deleted after death.
Google lets you set preferences for inactive accounts. Mine says that if Google doesn’t see any activity from me for three months, the company will notify my husband that I seem to be dead. He will probably already know, but still. You can also tell Google to delete everything on your account if you are officially declared inactive.
Password management tools are useful for more than keeping your passwords safe. LastPass, for example, lets you designate someone who can access your vault after your passing. And if you keep every single login safe in the LastPass vault (like you should), your trusted designee can access bank accounts, email and social media sites to take care of what needs to be taken care of. And if you’ve been backing up your social media assets with Digi.me, your loved ones can collect your pictures and posts and memories.