Stories
These scenarios are illustrative composites based on common experiences, not accounts of real people or Liscairn clients. They show the difference that planning makes.
When planning is left too late
These scenarios show common problems families face when there is no digital estate plan in place.
The Facebook account that became a ghost
His family could see his profile, with the last photo he posted and birthday wishes from friends who did not yet know he had died, but they could not change anything on it. For weeks it kept appearing in friend suggestions, and people who had not heard the news kept tagging him in posts. His daughter eventually found Facebook's memorialisation request form and sent a copy of the death certificate, and the account was memorialised. But because he had never chosen a legacy contact, no one could pin a funeral notice to his profile, update his profile photo, or accept friend requests from relatives who wanted to leave a message. Facebook does not let family members log in to the account.
A Facebook Legacy Contact takes a few minutes to set. With one in place, his daughter could have pinned a post with the funeral details, updated his profile photo, and looked after the memorialised account herself.
Set a Legacy Contact →Twenty years of emails, gone
Yahoo's terms say an account cannot be transferred and ends when the account holder dies. Yahoo does not give families access to the contents, and it closes accounts that go unused for a long time. The family did not know any of this. Months passed before anyone thought about the account, and when they contacted Yahoo it had already been closed and its contents deleted. Twenty years of personal correspondence, with her children, her late husband, and friends from school, was permanently lost.
If an account matters to you and the platform has no legacy contact feature (Yahoo, X/Twitter, and LinkedIn are examples), download a copy of your data now and keep it somewhere your family can reach. Do not assume anyone will be able to get into your account when you are gone.
Download your data from platforms without legacy features →The cryptocurrency no one could access
He kept his seed phrase (the list of words that unlocks a crypto wallet) in a file called "important" on his computer, and had never mentioned it to anyone. He died unexpectedly. His partner found the file but did not know what it was or how to use it. She contacted a solicitor, who brought in a cryptocurrency specialist. The seed phrase in the file turned out to belong to an old wallet he had emptied years earlier, when he moved his Bitcoin to a new one. The seed phrase for the new wallet was never found, and without it no one, including the specialist, can recover the €40,000.
With crypto you hold yourself, there is no company to appeal to and no password reset. Keep your current seed phrase somewhere secure and offline that your executor can find, never in the will itself, and update your instructions whenever you move your crypto to a new wallet. Tell someone you trust that it exists.
Secure your crypto seed phrase →The photo collection scattered across four platforms
Some photos were easy: she had shared a few iCloud albums with her daughter, so those could be saved straight away. Facebook was harder. She had set a legacy contact but had not ticked the option allowing them to download her data, so the family could only save what was visible on her profile. Her old Flickr account needed a separate request to Flickr, and her Google Photos library needed a formal request to Google about a deceased user's account. Eventually the family gathered most of the collection, but it took six months and three separate requests to three companies, and they were never sure they had everything.
One backed-up copy of her photos, on an external drive and in a cloud account the family could reach, would have made this an afternoon's job rather than a six-month project. Back up your photos now, and if you set a Facebook Legacy Contact, allow them to download a copy of your data.
Back up your photos →What good planning looks like
These scenarios show what becomes possible with even a small amount of forward thinking.
The organised departure
Her son, who was her executor, had an account inventory listing 23 accounts and her wishes for each. She had made him her Facebook legacy contact and her Apple Legacy Contact, and had given him emergency access to her password manager. Her iCloud photos were backed up to an external hard drive in a labelled box in the spare room. She had also written letters to each of her four grandchildren, kept in an envelope marked "open when ready". Within a few weeks of her death, her son had found all her online accounts from the list in her password manager, cancelled her subscriptions with each provider, had her Facebook profile memorialised and pinned a message she had drafted herself, and requested her Apple data using the access key she had left him. Two platforms still needed formal correspondence, but he knew exactly what to ask for.
One afternoon of planning → a few weeks of administration instead of months → letters that will be opened for decades
See what to do first →The photo archive that became a family treasure
He downloaded everything from Facebook, Instagram, and iCloud, around 8,000 photos. He spent a day deleting duplicates and poor-quality shots, bringing the collection down to 4,200, then organised them into folders by year and event and labelled the people and places. He stored the final collection on two external hard drives and in a Google Drive folder, and noted where to find them in his account inventory. He made a full recovery and is still alive. But his family now has a labelled photo archive they can enjoy without logging in to any platform, which will make sense to grandchildren who were not yet born when many of the photos were taken.
One weekend → 4,200 labelled, organised photos that do not depend on any platform
Back up your photos →The will that knew its limits
She added a clause to her will naming a digital executor (her nephew, who is comfortable with technology), referring to her Digital Wishes document by name and location, and giving him written permission to deal with her online accounts. Her solicitor explained that a will cannot make a platform cooperate, so she also set up legacy contacts on Facebook and Apple and trusted contacts in Google's Inactive Account Manager, and stored her account inventory alongside her will. When she dies, her nephew will have her written wishes to support any formal requests, and the people she chose can use each platform's own process for the accounts that matter most.
One will update + one afternoon of platform setup → a clear plan for every account
Set up legacy contacts →Your story is unwritten
Much of the difference between these outcomes comes down to a few hours of planning, done while you are alive. The checklist takes you through every action, in order.
Start your checklist →