How to Set Up Google Inactive Account Manager, Apple Legacy Contact, and Facebook Legacy Contact in 20 Minutes

Three of the biggest platforms on earth already built the tools your family will need when you die. Google, Apple, and Facebook each let you name someone in advance and decide what happens to your account. The tools are free. They take about seven minutes each. And almost nobody has turned any of them on.

That is the strange part. The companies spent years building these features, and they buried them three menus deep in settings pages most people never open. Your family will discover them at the worst possible moment, when they need your photos, your email, or your profile, and find out the setup was never done.

This article walks through all three, step by step. Do them in one sitting, in the order below, and the whole job takes about twenty minutes. You will need one decision for each: who is the person you trust with it.

One thing to know before you start: none of these tools hands over your password. That is deliberate, and it is the point. Each one gives your person a lawful, limited handoff instead of the keys to your life. Our guide to what happens to your passwords when you die explains why that distinction matters, and why logging in as a dead person can create legal trouble for the family member who does it. These three tools are the legal way in.

Start here: pick your person first

All three tools ask you to name someone. Pick the person before you open the first settings page, or you will stall on every screen.

The right person is not necessarily your executor, though it often is. It is the person who will actually be reachable, calm, and organized in the weeks after your death, and who your family trusts with your photos and messages. For most people that is a spouse, an adult child, or a sibling. You can name different people on different platforms. Your spouse can be your Google contact while your sister handles Facebook. What matters is that each person knows they were chosen, and knows roughly what to expect. Tell them after you finish. A surprise designation is almost as useless as no designation, because they will not know where to look.

Keep a note of who you chose where. Where to store your will is the companion piece for the paper side of this, and the same logic applies here: the plan only works if someone can find it. Write the three names on the same sheet where your executor's details live.

1. Google Inactive Account Manager: the dead man's switch (about 7 minutes)

Google's tool is the most powerful of the three, because a Google account usually holds the most: Gmail, Drive, Photos, YouTube, and the login for dozens of other services through Sign in with Google. It is also the only one of the three that works on a timer rather than on a death certificate. Google watches for silence, not for proof of death.

That timer is the whole design. You choose a waiting period: 3, 6, 12, or 18 months of inactivity. If your account goes quiet for that long, Google first tries to reach you, with alerts to your recovery email and recovery phone, about a month before anything happens. A long hospital stay or a trip off the grid will not silently trigger it. Only if you never respond does Google act on the plan you set.

The steps

Go to myaccount.google.com/inactive while signed in, or open your Google account, go to Data and privacy, and look for the section about planning for your digital legacy. Either path lands on the same setup page, and that same address is where you come back later to change or cancel your choices.

First, choose the waiting period. Three months is the fastest handoff and the riskiest: a long illness can trip it. Eighteen months is the widest buffer Google offers. Twelve months is the sensible middle for most people, a full year of silence before anything moves.

Second, confirm the recovery phone and recovery email Google will use to warn you before the plan fires. These are your safety net against a false trigger. Make sure they are current. A recovery email you have not opened since 2019 is not a safety net.

Third, add your trusted contacts, up to ten people. For each one you decide two things: whether they only get notified, or also get data; and if data, exactly which products they may download. You can give different people different slices. Your business partner can get Drive but not Photos. Your spouse can get everything. Google will ask for a mobile number for each contact who gets data, and it verifies that number now, by text, so you know it works before it matters. Use personal email addresses and phone numbers they will still control years from now, not a work email they might lose.

Fourth, write the message each contact will receive, and the automatic reply Gmail should send to anyone who emails you after the account goes inactive. Keep both short and human. The contact message should say who you are, that this is the plan you set up, and what the download link is for. The auto-reply should say you are no longer reachable at this address and who to contact instead.

Fifth, decide on the final toggle: whether the whole account is deleted three months after it is declared inactive. If you switch it on, your contacts get their download window first, then everything is wiped. If you leave it off, the account sits there. Most people should switch it on. An account nobody owns is a security risk, and Google has a separate policy, in force since December 2023, under which accounts inactive for two years may be deleted anyway. Better to control the ending yourself.

What your contacts actually get

When the plan fires, each contact who was granted data receives an email with a download link for exactly the products you ticked. They have about three months to collect it. They do not get your password. They cannot log in as you, send email as you, or keep using the account. They get an export, not the keys.

Two things people get wrong. First, your contacts hear nothing during setup. Google does not notify them when you add them, only after the full waiting period has passed. That is why you must tell them yourself. Second, this covers Google only. It does nothing for your Apple ID, your bank, your password manager, or Facebook. It is one piece of the puzzle, and a big one, but only one piece.

2. Apple Legacy Contact: the access key for your photos (about 5 minutes)

Apple's version is the highest stakes of the three if your photos live anywhere, because for most iPhone owners they live in iCloud. Apple calls it a Legacy Contact: someone you choose who can request access to the data in your Apple Account after you die.

You need a device running iOS 15.2, iPadOS 15.2, or macOS Monterey 12.1 or later, with two-factor authentication turned on. On an iPhone, go to Settings, tap your name, then Sign-In and Security, then Legacy Contact. You can name more than one person.

When you add someone, Apple generates an access key, a long code presented as text and a QR code. Your contact needs two things to use it later: that key, and your death certificate. They make the request through Apple's Digital Legacy portal, and Apple reviews it. The process can take days to weeks. Without the access key, the process is slower and more legalistic, and without a Legacy Contact at all, your family generally needs a court order. So the key is the whole ballgame.

How to handle the access key

Apple lets you share the key with your contact right from the setup screen, by message or email. Do that, and then do one more thing: make sure the key is also stored somewhere your family can find it without your phone. A printed copy with your will, or a copy in the password manager your executor can open, covers the case where your contact loses the message you sent them years ago. Do not rely on a single screenshot on a phone that might be lost.

What they can and cannot get

Once approved, a Legacy Contact can access the personal archive: photos, messages, notes, mail, contacts, calendars, files in iCloud Drive, and device backups. What they cannot get is the part most people assume they will: anything in iCloud Keychain. Your saved passwords, passkeys, and payment information are excluded, as are movies, music, books, and subscriptions you bought with the account. Apple says this plainly in its own support pages, and it is the single most misunderstood limit of the feature. Your family gets your memories. They do not get your logins. Passwords need their own plan, which is why our guide to never putting passwords in your will covers the password manager setup that closes this gap.

One more limit, and it is a deadline. A Legacy Contact's access runs for three years from the approval of the first request, and then Apple permanently deletes the account. Three years sounds generous until you remember that the first year after a death is usually spent on probate, not on archiving a photo library. Tell your contact the clock exists, and tell them the photos are the priority, not the old notes.

3. Facebook Legacy Contact: looking after the profile (about 5 minutes)

Facebook's version is different from the other two, because a Facebook profile is a shared, public space, not a private vault. The feature is about stewardship, not access. A legacy contact looks after a memorialized profile. They never sign in as you.

First, the decision Facebook asks you to make: when you die, should your account be memorialized, or deleted? Memorialization keeps the profile visible, marked with "Remembering" next to your name, as a place where friends can share memories. Deletion removes it entirely. There is no wrong answer, but it is yours to make now, not your family's to guess at later. If you choose memorialization, you can also choose a legacy contact. If you choose deletion, there is no legacy contact to choose.

To set it up, go to Settings, find the memorialization or account management section, and look for Legacy Contact. You must be 18 or older, and you can only choose someone who is already your friend on the platform. Facebook will offer to send them a message letting them know. Say yes. You can also choose whether they will be allowed to download a copy of what you shared, photos, posts, and profile information. Turn that on if you want your posts preserved, because without that permission the download option is not available later.

What a legacy contact can and cannot do

Once your account is memorialized, which happens after someone reports your death and Facebook verifies it, your legacy contact can write a pinned post on your profile, such as funeral details or a final message; update your profile photo and cover photo; respond to new friend requests; decide who can see or post tributes; and request that the account be deleted instead of staying memorialized.

They cannot log in to your account, read your private messages, remove your existing friends, or edit or remove your past posts. Those limits are not a bug. They are the point. Facebook built the role to protect your privacy while preserving your public memory, and that means your private messages are not part of the handoff. If you want your family to have your messages, a legacy contact will not give them that. Plan accordingly, and do not promise otherwise.

One warning: if no legacy contact is chosen, a memorialized account cannot be changed at all. Nobody can pin the funeral details. Nobody can update the photo. The profile freezes exactly as it was. That is the outcome this five minutes of setup prevents.

What these three tools still do not cover

Set up all three and you have done more than almost anyone. But be honest with yourself about what is still open, because the gaps are where families actually get stuck.

Your passwords are still the biggest gap. None of these tools hands over a login, and Apple's Keychain exclusion means your iPhone's saved passwords die with you unless you have a separate plan. That plan is a password manager with emergency access turned on, and a note telling your executor it exists. The full setup is in our guide to what happens to your passwords when you die.

Your bank, your phone PIN, and your two-factor codes are outside all three tools. Your bank has its own process, usually a death certificate and proof of executorship, and your phone's PIN is a separate conversation to have with your executor in person. No platform setting covers them.

And none of these tools delivers anything. They wait. Google waits months. Apple waits for a request and a death certificate. Facebook waits for someone to report the death. If your family needs to know something quickly, if there is a message, a file, or a password they need in the first week, none of these tools will deliver it. That is the gap Farwell exists to close: a check-in system that notices when you go silent and delivers what you left behind, instead of waiting for your family to come looking. Set up a free account and put the things these three tools cannot deliver inside it.

The 20-minute checklist

Do it in one sitting, in this order, and check each box as you go.

Minutes 0 to 2: decide. Pick one person for Google, one for Apple, and one for Facebook. They can be the same person. Write the three names down.

Minutes 2 to 9: Google. Go to myaccount.google.com/inactive. Choose 12 months. Confirm your recovery phone and email. Add your contacts, up to ten, with phone numbers. Choose which data each one gets. Write the contact message and the auto-reply. Switch on account deletion after the download window.

Minutes 9 to 14: Apple. On your iPhone, go to Settings, your name, Sign-In and Security, Legacy Contact. Add your person. Share the access key with them, and store a copy with your will.

Minutes 14 to 19: Facebook. Go to Settings, find Legacy Contact. Choose memorialize or delete. Name your contact, allow the data download if you want your posts preserved, and let Facebook send them the message.

Minute 19 to 20: tell your people. Message each person you named. One sentence each: "I set you as my legacy contact on Google/Apple/ Facebook. If something happens to me, you will get an email from them with instructions. The details are with my will." That message is the difference between a plan and a secret.

The point of the twenty minutes

Nobody enjoys this task, which is why almost nobody does it. But the cost of skipping it is not abstract. It is your spouse, six weeks after your funeral, on hold with a support line, explaining to a stranger that you are dead and asking for the photos of your children. Every one of those calls is preventable by a setting you can change tonight, from your couch, in less time than an episode of television.

Do the three setups. Tell your people. Then write down who you chose, and where, on the same sheet as your executor's details, so the plan can be found. What a will covers, and what it doesn't explains the rest of the gap these tools leave, and why the paper will and the digital plan have to be built together. The will divides your assets. These settings divide your access. Both need to be done, and neither is hard once someone shows you where the buttons are.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Platform features change, so confirm the current steps on each company's own help pages before relying on them, and talk to an estate lawyer in your province or state about how digital assets fit into your will. Farwell is a check-in triggered delivery service, not a law firm.

About the author: David Yang is the Founder of Farwell. Farwell makes sure the people you love get your will, your messages, and your files when you go silent, even if no one knows where to look.

Keep going: Read What happens to your passwords when you die? for the password manager setup that closes the Keychain gap, and Where should you store your will? for the paper half of the same problem. If you want the things these three tools cannot deliver to reach your family automatically, set up a free Farwell account at farwellapp.com.