Your whole life is behind a passcode now. This is how your family gets back into the phone, the email, the photos, and the accounts when you are gone.
When you die, your money and documents are reachable. Your digital life is not. Almost every account now texts a one-time code to your phone before it lets anyone in. Without the phone passcode, even the right password fails. Locked out of the phone, your family is locked out of everything.
Write down where the keys are kept, never the keys themselves. A passcode or master password belongs in a sealed envelope in your safe, or inside a password manager, not on a page that could be copied, emailed, or read in probate.
Set up the official handoffs on the next pages, then record where the two master keys live on the worksheet at the back. That is the whole job.
Apple lets you name a Legacy Contact who can access your photos, messages, notes, and files after you die, using an access key plus a copy of your death certificate. It is free and takes two minutes.
On your iPhone or iPad, open Settings and tap your name at the very top.
Then tap Legacy Contact.
Tap Add Legacy Contact and choose someone you trust. If they use Apple devices, the access key is stored for them automatically.
Send it to them, or print it and keep it with your planner. They will need it plus your death certificate to get in.
Steps move around as Apple updates iOS. If you do not see Legacy Contact, search "Legacy Contact" in Settings, or set it up on a Mac under System Settings, your name, Sign-In & Security.
Google can hand your Gmail, Google Photos, Drive, and more to people you choose if your account goes unused for a set time. It is the cleanest way to pass on a Google life, and almost no one knows it exists.
On a computer, sign in at myaccount.google.com.
Scroll to "More options" and choose Make a plan for your digital legacy, also called Inactive Account Manager.
Choose how long the account must be inactive before the plan starts, from 3 to 18 months.
Name up to 10 trusted people, pick which data each can download, and optionally have the account deleted afterward.
Family photos and years of email often live only in Google. This setting is the difference between your family keeping those memories and losing them for good.
In Settings, under Memorialization, you can name a legacy contact who can manage a memorialized profile, or ask that your account be deleted when you die. A memorialized page keeps your photos and lets friends share memories, but no one can log in as you.
An Instagram account can be memorialized or removed by a family member who provides proof. There is no advance legacy contact, so leave instructions for what you want done.
For Outlook, Yahoo, or other email, there is usually no legacy tool. The realest way in is the account password kept safely plus access to the phone for the verification code. Note your wishes so your family knows whether to keep an inbox open for a while or close it.
Keep one email open for at least a year. Banks, benefits, and accounts send important mail there long after, and it is often the address used to reset other passwords.
A password manager is the safest place to keep your logins, and most have a built-in way to pass them to someone you trust. Set this up and you replace a hundred passwords with one plan.
That is fine, and for many people it is safer. Keep the notebook in your safe, and on the worksheet at the back, write down where the notebook is. Never write the master password on a loose page.
Write where each key is kept, not the key itself. This page should point your family to the safe or the sealed envelope, never spell out a passcode in plain sight.