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Platform guides
Step-by-step instructions for setting up legacy contacts and managing your accounts on each major platform.
Start with Facebook, Apple, and Google. These three cover the majority of most people's digital life and each has a proper legacy contact feature. The others can follow.
Facebook allows you to choose a "Legacy Contact" — one person who can manage your profile after you die. They can write a pinned post, respond to friend requests, and request removal. You can also choose to have your account permanently deleted after death instead.
Step-by-step
- 1Open Facebook on your phone or computer and go to Settings & Privacy → Settings.
- 2Scroll to the section "Your Facebook Information" and tap "Memorialisation Settings".
- 3Under "Legacy Contact", tap "Add legacy contact" and search for the person you want to nominate.
- 4Tap "Add" next to their name. Facebook will ask if you want to send them a notification.
- 5Optionally: below this setting, decide whether to request account deletion after death or memorialisation.
- 6Your legacy contact will see this in their own settings when it becomes relevant.
They can
- Write a pinned post on your profile
- Respond to new friend requests
- Update your profile photo and cover photo
- Request that Facebook remove the account
- Download a copy of what you shared (if you grant this permission)
They cannot
- Log in as you or read your private messages
- Remove tags or change past posts
- See your payment information
Tip: Choose someone who is comfortable dealing with online accounts and who you trust to respond thoughtfully to people who reach out after your death. Tell them you have done this.
Done with the platforms?
Next up: make sure your executor can actually access your accounts by setting up secure password access.
Password access guide →