Most estate planning focuses on physical and financial assets — property, bank accounts, possessions. Almost none of it addresses the dozens of online accounts a person accumulates over a lifetime and leaves behind, most of them locked behind a password nobody else has. For families dealing with a loss, this has become a genuinely common source of extra stress at an already difficult time.
Why this has become a real problem
Photos stored only in a cloud account, a small cryptocurrency holding, an online banking or investment account, a social media profile a family wants to memorialise or close, a subscription still quietly billing a card every month — all of it can become effectively inaccessible without the right credentials, and providers generally won't hand over access just because someone claims to be next of kin. Verifying that legally, when it's even possible, can take months.
What's worth preparing, practically
A password manager with an emergency access feature. Several major password managers include a specific option to designate a trusted contact who can request access after a waiting period you control — this is generally a cleaner and more secure approach than a written list of passwords, which becomes a liability the moment it exists on paper or in an unsecured document.
A written list of accounts that matter, not necessarily their passwords. Even without sharing the passwords themselves, a list of which accounts exist — bank, investment, email, significant subscriptions — gives whoever handles your affairs a starting point instead of a blank search.
Instructions for specific platforms. Major social media and email providers have their own legacy or memorialisation processes (designating a legacy contact, requesting account closure with a death certificate). Setting these up in advance, where the option exists, avoids family members having to navigate an unfamiliar process from scratch during an already difficult period.
Clarity on cryptocurrency specifically. Crypto holdings are a particular risk here — without the private key or recovery phrase, funds can become permanently inaccessible, with no customer support line able to help, unlike a traditional bank account. If you hold any crypto, this deserves specific, explicit planning rather than being lumped in with "other accounts."
Keeping it secure while you're still using it
None of this should mean writing your actual passwords into a will, which becomes a public document once probated, or into an unsecured note. The password manager's built-in emergency access feature exists specifically to solve this — access is only granted after the process you've defined, not immediately or automatically.
Talking about it, even briefly
This is a conversation most families put off indefinitely, for understandable reasons. It doesn't need to be elaborate — even a short conversation about where the important information lives (which password manager, who has emergency access) removes most of the practical difficulty later, without requiring anyone to think too hard about the underlying reason for having it.
The realistic takeaway
You don't need a formal digital estate plan drawn up by a lawyer, though that's an option for more complex situations. For most people, a password manager with emergency access configured, plus a short conversation with whoever would eventually handle your affairs, covers the overwhelming majority of what actually causes difficulty later.