Apple, Google and Facebook after a death: what each one actually requires

Apple, Google and Facebook all have a way to reach a dead person’s account. That is worth saying first, because families are often told there is nothing to be done.

What none of the three will do is hand over the login. Google says it plainly: “We cannot provide passwords or other login details.” Apple will not unlock a passcode-locked iPhone. Facebook’s policy is that “No one can log into a memorialized account.”

So each company has two doors. One was built for the person to walk through in advance, takes about five minutes, and is free. The other is built for the family afterward, runs on legal documents, is decided case by case, and gets you less. Apple states the relationship between them outright: setting things up in advance “can simplify the process of acquiring a legal order and reduce delay and frustration for family members during a difficult time.”

Here is what each one asks for.

Two things worth not doing by accident

Both of these are ordinary tidying-up steps, and both are permanent.

Closing the Google account closes the photographs with it. Google offers three separate requests — close the account, ask for funds, or obtain data — and the order matters enormously: “If you select to close the Google account, Google is unable to process any request to turn over the contents of the account at a later date.” A family that closes the account to stop the notifications has also ended any future path to what was inside it. If there is any chance someone will want the photos or mail, that request goes first.

Erasing the phone erases what is on it. Apple can sometimes help remove Activation Lock, but “you will need to erase and restore their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad before it can be used with another Apple Account.” And a locked device is its own wall: “devices locked with a passcode are protected by passcode encryption, and Apple can’t help remove the passcode lock without erasing the device.” Handing the phone to someone to reuse is a decision about the contents, not just the hardware.

Neither is a reason to hurry. They are a reason to do the retrieval before the tidying.

Facebook

Facebook’s default after a death is memorialization. “Memorialized accounts are a place for friends and family to gather and share memories after a person has passed away.” The word “Remembering” appears above the person’s name.

Two of its features matter most to families. The first is that nobody gets in — “No one can log into a memorialized account” is the stated policy, and it holds for a spouse holding the password. The second is the one that brings people to this page in the first place: “Memorialized profiles don’t appear in public spaces such as in suggestions for People You May Know, ads or birthday reminders.” If a birthday notification arriving next spring is what you are trying to prevent, memorializing is the fix, and it needs nothing but a request.

What the account keeps is also fixed. Content the person shared stays visible to the audience it was shared with, and “in most cases, once an account is memorialized, content can’t be removed from it.”

Changing anything depends on one setting: “Memorialized accounts that don’t have a legacy contact can’t be changed.” A legacy contact, named by the person in advance, can “change the person’s profile picture and cover photo,” “write a pinned post on the timeline,” and “respond to new friend requests.” They still cannot read messages.

If no legacy contact was named, Facebook’s afterward door needs “a will of the deceased that names an individual who should be given control over a person’s online accounts.” Failing that: “If no legacy contact is added, a court administering the estate of the deceased issues an order directing us to appoint a custodian of a deceased user’s social media accounts or to add an individual as the legacy contact for a deceased user’s Facebook account.”

One line worth reading if the person ran anything: “Pages with a sole admin whose account was memorialized will be removed from Facebook if we receive a valid request.” A business page, a church group, a community page with one owner — that is what becomes of it.

Apple

Apple’s advance tool is Legacy Contact. “A Legacy Contact is someone you choose to have access to certain data in your Apple Account after your death,” and the requirement is the whole story: they “must have both the access key and your death certificate to request access after you pass away.”

A funeral home can put a death certificate in your hands. The access key cannot be produced afterward — the person generates it on their device and shares it while alive, by message, printed, or kept “with your estate planning documents.” If you are holding a folder of paperwork, it is worth looking for: people who set this up were often told to file it with the will, and Apple’s own guidance points there. Apple calls Legacy Contact “the easiest, most secure way” to do this.

Without a key, the afterward door is a legal one. Apple “requires and verifies legal documentation before we can assist with a deceased person’s account. This generally includes a death certificate, and might also require a court order or other documentation.” There is also a separate request to permanently delete the account, which needs the same documentation and none of the retrieval.

Apple is specific about what no document reaches: “Inaccessible data includes movies, music, books, or subscriptions you purchased with your Apple Account, and data stored in your iCloud Keychain (payment information, passwords, and passkeys).”

The passwords are gone. Not withheld pending paperwork — built not to open. Every other account the person had, the dozens with no legacy program of their own, sits behind that keychain.

Two smaller facts: you can have more than one Legacy Contact, and “any one of them can individually make decisions about your account data after your death, including permanently deleting it.” A Legacy Contact “must be over the age of 13 (age varies by country or region),” so a grandchild may or may not qualify.

Google

Google’s advance tool runs on a principle families regularly misread. “Inactive Account Manager is a way for users to share parts of their account data or notify someone if they’ve been inactive for a certain period of time.”

Nothing there involves a death certificate. The trigger is inactivity on a clock the person chose — “Tell us how long we should wait before we do so by setting up your plan” — so a family holding a folder of documents has nobody to hand it to. If a plan exists it can be generous: “You can select up to 10 people to receive this data, and choose to share all or only specific data types.”

Two details catch people out. Named contacts are told nothing in advance — “they will not receive any notification during setup” — so nobody knows they were chosen until the account has been quiet long enough. And each needs a phone number on file, which Google explains as a safeguard: it “prevents data access from unauthorized people who might get hold of the email we send.”

The afterward door is a real one and it is discretionary. Google will “work with immediate family members and representatives to close the account of a deceased person where appropriate,” and “in certain circumstances we may provide content from a deceased user’s account.” That is a maybe, stated as a maybe: “Any decision to satisfy a request about a deceased user will be made only after a careful review.”

The three, side by side

	The advance door	The door afterward
Apple	Legacy Contact — an access key the person generates and shares	death certificate, and possibly a court order; keychain and purchases unreachable either way
Google	Inactive Account Manager — a plan with contacts and a waiting period	a case-by-case request; content only “in certain circumstances,” never the password
Facebook	a legacy contact named in settings	a will naming digital-account control, or a court order

The columns differ in the details and agree on the shape. Five minutes beforehand, or lawyers and waiting afterward, for less.

If nothing was set up

Then some of this is genuinely closed, and it is better to hear that than to be sent through six support forms.

Worth doing: memorialize the Facebook account if the reminders are painful — that request needs no legacy contact. Look through the paper files for an Apple access key before deciding there isn’t one. Make any Google data request before any closure request. And if an estate is going through probate anyway, these are things an attorney can ask for while already in front of a judge.

Not worth doing: hunting for a master key. There isn’t one, and the search costs evenings.

That the accounts stay mostly shut is a real loss, and it is a reason to value what needs no login at all. A box of letters opens for anyone. A life story written down or recorded while the person was here belongs to whoever holds the file. An obituary runs a few hundred words against tens of thousands of days, and the days that got written down somewhere are the ones no company’s policy governs.

For your own accounts

Apple’s Legacy Contact is in Settings, under your name, then Sign-In & Security. Google’s Inactive Account Manager is at myaccount.google.com. Facebook’s legacy contact is in Settings, under Memorialization.

All three are free and take a few minutes. Apple’s own words for what that buys is the plainest summary anyone has written: it can “reduce delay and frustration for family members during a difficult time.” Not doing it is what nearly everyone has done, and it is survivable — it just moves the work to people who will be busy, and hands them the expensive door.