Who Inherits Your Password Manager? The UK Guide to the Accounts You'll Leave Behind

Ask a room of UK professionals what happens to their pension if they die and you'll get a sensible, well-rehearsed answer. Ask them what happens to their iCloud photo library, their password manager, the domain name they bought in 2011, or the eleven direct debits still wired to an email address nobody else can log into — and the room goes quiet.

That silence isn't carelessness. Digital estate planning is a filing problem dressed up as a technical one, and nobody sends you the filing system. So here is a working version of it.

First, the uncomfortable bit: you don't own the account

Under UK law, your online accounts are not really property you can hand on. You own the hardware, you own copyright in things you created, and you own the money in a bank account. What you don't own is the account itself. That's a licence, governed by a contract almost nobody reads, and those contracts usually say the account is personal and non-transferable.

Which means the question is never 'who inherits my Gmail?' It's 'which providers have built a process for this, and have I switched it on?'

What the big platforms actually offer

Apple has the most developed route: Legacy Contact. You nominate up to five people from your iPhone or Mac, and each gets an access key that you should hand over while you're alive. After your death they submit the key plus a death certificate, Apple reviews the request, and they get access to a defined set of data — photos, notes, files, device backups and so on — for a limited period. What they don't get is your iCloud Keychain passwords or any DRM-protected media. Set it up and then actually give the person the key. An access key nobody has is a very tidy dead end.

Google takes a different approach with Inactive Account Manager. You set a timeout — anything from three to eighteen months of inactivity — and up to ten trusted contacts. When the timer trips, those contacts are either notified or sent a limited download of your data, depending on what you chose. It is not full account access, and you can also have the account deleted instead. Google additionally runs a bereavement process for next of kin, but expect paperwork and a long wait.

Microsoft has no self-service tool at all. Family members go through a next-of-kin request with a death certificate, sometimes court documents, and the usual outcome is a decision about closing the account or recovering data from a device rather than a set of credentials. Slow, manual, and worth knowing about before anyone is grieving.

Password managers are where the genuinely clean answers live, because emergency access is a feature rather than a favour. Most major services let you nominate a trusted contact who can request access, with a waiting period — typically a day or a few days — during which you can decline. That grace window is the whole point: it protects against a live intruder and still works when you're no longer around to click anything.

Where UK law makes it messier

Two bits of domestic law are worth understanding.

The first is that UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 don't extend to the personal data of deceased people. Data protection law simply stops at death. The upside is that a provider can't stonewall your family by citing data rights; the downside is that they can't be compelled to help either. Everything comes down to their terms and their willingness. That's a strong argument for favouring platforms that publish an actual process.

The second is the Computer Misuse Act 1990. Logging into an account using someone else's credentials, even after their death, is legally murky at best, and it will almost certainly breach the terms of service. The well-meant 'just leave the password in an envelope so my partner can get in' is not a plan. It's a plan-shaped risk.

And a practical trap: once probate is granted in England and Wales, a will becomes a public document that anyone can buy a copy of. Never put credentials, recovery codes or account numbers in a will. Point to the file; don't be the file.

Banks, for once, are the easy part. Most have bereavement teams, joint accounts pass automatically to the survivor, and the Death Notification Service — run through UK Finance — lets you notify several banks and building societies in one go. The government's Tell Us Once service covers HMRC, DWP, DVLA, the Passport Office and your council, but not banks and certainly not tech companies.

Building the break-glass file

Think of it as two layers. The outer layer is a single page anyone could read: what exists, who to contact, what to do first. The inner layer is the route in, sealed and held somewhere sensible.

The outer page should cover:

• A short instruction letter in plain English, addressed to a named person, saying what to do in the first week.
• An asset register: devices, cloud storage, domain names, subscriptions, business accounts, crypto if any, plus the email address that acts as the master key for all of it.
• Confirmation that legacy contacts and inactive-account timers are switched on, with dates.
• Names of your solicitor and executor, and where the will lives.
• The reminder that the master email account is the crown jewel — almost every password reset in your life runs through it.

The inner layer should hold the recovery keys, the sealed password-manager emergency route, and any two-factor backup codes. Keep it offline. Two copies in two places — a home safe and a solicitor's strongroom is a reasonable split. Sign and date across the seal so tampering is obvious.

The weekend version

If you do nothing else this month, do this, in this order:

1. Nominate a Legacy Contact on Apple and give them the key, in person.
2. Switch on Google's Inactive Account Manager and set the timeout to something realistic.
3. Turn on emergency access in your password manager and name one person.
4. Write the one-page letter by hand. It takes fifteen minutes and it is the single most useful document in the folder.
5. Tell one living human where the file is kept.
6. Put a review date in the calendar, twelve months out, and treat it like a boiler service.

The file only works if it's current. A break-glass folder last updated in 2019 is a puzzle, not a plan — and it's the sort of thing that turns a difficult week into a genuinely horrible one. Fold it into whatever annual admin ritual you already have, and it stops feeling morbid and starts feeling like tidying up.