Tech
What happens to online accounts after someone dies
Most services have a defined process, and several allow arrangements to be made in advance.
Major platforms provide legacy or inactive account settings allowing a person to nominate someone, or to specify deletion after a period of inactivity. Setting this up takes minutes and removes almost all of the later difficulty.
Without that, the process is a request supported by a death certificate and proof of authority, and outcomes differ: some services memorialise an account, some close it, and most will not hand over the contents.
Password sharing is not the answer, because it generally breaches the terms of service and can complicate a legitimate request. A password manager's own emergency access feature is designed for this and is the better route.
A written list of which accounts exist, stored with the household's permanent documents, matters more than access to any one of them. Executors most often struggle to discover what existed at all.
What to do next. Set up legacy contacts on your main accounts, and keep a written list of which accounts exist with your permanent documents.
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