The good news: the biggest tech companies have thought about what happens to your data. The bad news: each of them only thought about its own data.
Quick comparison
| Google Inactive Account Manager | Apple Legacy Contact | mementomori.digital | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is passed on | Google account data and your message | iCloud photos, notes, files, backups | Any text: instructions, access details, words |
| Recipients | Up to 10 | Several contacts | Up to 5, each with a separate message |
| When it triggers | After the inactivity period you choose | When the contact submits the access key and a death certificate | After 30 days without contact, checks and manual confirmation |
| Passwords | Not passed on | Keychain passwords not passed on | Passed on if you write them |
| Price | Free | Free | $2 a month |
Google: good for Gmail and Photos
Inactive Account Manager triggers when you haven't used your account for a while. Up to 10 people receive your message and a link to selected data. The downside: Google only, and "inactive" doesn't always mean dead — think of a long period without connectivity.
Apple: good for iCloud
Legacy Contact gives access to photos, files and device backups for 3 years. But it needs the access key you shared in advance and a death certificate. Passwords and purchases are not passed on.
What neither of them covers
- Crypto wallets, exchanges, banks and other services outside Google and Apple.
- Instructions: what to do, whom to call, where the documents are.
- Personal words for each person — not "data access", but a real letter.
- Checking that a person has actually died rather than simply being out of reach.
How mementomori.digital works
You write messages to up to 5 people. The text is encrypted in your browser (AES-256-GCM), and the server stores only ciphertext. As long as your monthly payment goes through, we assume you are fine. If it stops, we write to you on days 3, 7 and 25, ask your trusted person, and deliver only after a manual check.
Our advice: use them all. Google and Apple for their own data, mementomori for everything else — and for the words that matter.