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Name legacy contacts on the platforms that offer them
Why it matters: These built-in tools let a named person get your photos and files without a court order or a guessed password. Without them, platforms may refuse or take months.
Best after: Write an account map, not a password list
Do it
- On iPhone, go to Settings, tap your name, Sign-In & Security, then Legacy Contact, and add someone.
- On Google, set up Inactive Account Manager at myaccount.google.com/inactive and choose who gets what.
- On Facebook, choose a legacy contact or request deletion after death; check other social accounts for similar options.
- Give each legacy contact the access key or instructions the platform provides, and store a copy with your papers.
Check it worked: You've named a legacy contact on your Apple account, set up Google's Inactive Account Manager, and chosen what happens to your social media accounts.
Simply put
A legacy contact is like naming in your will who gets the key to your photo albums. The platform hands access to that person, instead of your family waiting months or being refused.
In detail
Legacy contacts are not recovery contacts: a recovery contact helps you get back in while alive; a legacy contact gets access after death. Set both, ideally with different people.
As a story
Years from now, your daughter is sorting through your affairs. She opens the folder you showed her once and finds your account map, with no passwords on it, and the legacy contact access key you gave her.
She follows the instructions. Apple asks for the access key and a death certificate; Google has already emailed her a link to download the files you chose once your account went quiet. She downloads the family photos, the videos and the voice messages you kept.
Nobody has to guess a password or argue with a support line. That evening she shares the albums with her brother, and they spend an hour looking through them together.
If this is new to you: Does this give them access now? No. A legacy contact gets access only after your death. For help while you're alive, set a recovery contact too.
Points toward the Long View: photos and files that pass to the people you chose.