Digital Estate Planning Checklist - The 25 Things Your Family Will Need

Digital estate checklist

The 25 things your family will need · sallydoesdata.com/tools/digital-estate-checklist

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🖼️ Photos & memories

The things your family will ask about first.

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Find out where your phone photos are backed up — or admit that they aren’tIf your phone were lost tomorrow, this one answer decides whether the photos are lost with it.
List the old computers and laptops sitting in closetsWhole decades of family photos are often trapped on machines only one person can log into.
Gather the external drives, USB sticks, and memory cards, and label themAn unlabeled drive in a junk drawer looks like trash to everyone except you.
Write down each cloud photo service you use and which email address it lives underA cloud account nobody knows about eventually stops being paid for, and the photos go with it.
Note where the printed photos and albums are keptThe shoeboxes in the attic are part of the family collection too, even though no computer knows about them.
Scan the prints you could never replaceA print has no backup until you make one, and a scan protects it from fire, flood, and fading.

The keys that open everything else.

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Check that your main email account has a current recovery phone and backup addressEmail is the master key — nearly every other account resets itself through it.
Put your passwords in one place, either a password manager or one honest written listOne well-kept list is worth more than two hundred sticky notes and lucky guesses.
Make a plan for how someone you trust could unlock your phoneA locked phone keeps out strangers and family alike, and it usually holds the photos and the codes.
Print the backup codes for accounts that use two-step verificationThe codes that keep strangers out of your accounts will keep your family out too, unless you save them.
List any domain names or websites you own, and where they are registeredDomains expire quietly, and once one lapses anybody can buy it out from under your name.
List the subscriptions that renew on their own, especially cloud storageSome services keep charging until someone cancels, and some delete your files when the payments stop.

Where the important paper (and paperless) things live.

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List your bank and brokerage accounts — just the institution names, never the passwordsAccounts nobody knows to look for can end up handed to the state as unclaimed property.
List retirement accounts and pensions, and check who the beneficiaries areThe beneficiary form decides who receives that money, even when a will says otherwise.
Note where your recent tax returns are keptA tax return answers most of the money questions your family would otherwise have to guess at.
Note where your insurance policies are — life, home, and autoA life insurance policy nobody knows exists pays out to nobody.
Keep deeds, titles, and loan papers in one folder your family knows aboutProving what you own is a hundred times easier with the paperwork in hand.
Write down any crypto, investing, or payment apps, and how to reach themCryptocurrency with no recorded way in is not inherited — it is simply gone.
Note where the safe or safe-deposit box is, and where the key or combination livesA safe nobody can open protects your papers from your own family too.

The choices only you can make, made while it’s easy.

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Choose the person who will handle your digital life, and actually ask themSomebody will end up doing this job, and choosing them now is a kindness to everyone.
Set a Legacy Contact on your Apple accountWithout one, Apple can require a court order before your family sees what is in your iCloud.
Turn on Google’s Inactive Account ManagerIt quietly hands your Gmail and Google Photos to the person you choose if your account ever goes silent.
Pick a legacy contact on Facebook, or choose to have the account removedYou get to decide whether your page becomes a memorial — otherwise the decision is made without you.
Write a one-page letter that says where everything is, and tell someone where you keep itOne friendly page pointing to the important things may be the most useful document you ever write.
Make sure your will or estate plan mentions your digital belongingsIn many places, companies need written legal permission before they will hand accounts over to family.

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