Imagine your family needs access to your phone, email or online banking tomorrow. Not out of curiosity — to pay bills, find documents, tell your friends, save your photos. Could they do it without you?
For most people the answer is no. Here is a simple plan to fix that in one evening.
Step 1. Make a list
Take a sheet of paper (or an offline note) and list everything only you can access:
- Devices: phone, laptop, tablet — PINs and passwords.
- Your main email. It's how everything else is recovered, so it matters most.
- Banks and payments: which banks, where the cards are, which recurring payments will need stopping.
- Cloud and photos: Google Photos, iCloud, Dropbox — often the whole family history lives there.
- Social networks and messengers.
- Work accounts that colleagues will need.
- Crypto, domains, subscriptions, business dashboards.
Step 2. Turn on built-in legacy features
Big platforms already have their own tools — use them:
- Google — Inactive Account Manager: choose people who get access to certain data if you stop using your account for a long time.
- Apple — Legacy Contact in your Apple ID settings.
- Facebook / Instagram — a legacy contact who will manage your memorialised profile.
These features are useful, but they only work inside their own platform and don't pass on your personal words and instructions.
Step 3. Use a password manager
The most reliable approach is to keep all passwords in a password manager (Bitwarden, 1Password and similar). Then your family needs only one "master key" instead of a hundred separate passwords. Some managers also offer emergency access.
Step 4. Don't share passwords "just in case" right now
Sending all your passwords to your spouse or brother in a messenger feels simple, but it creates new risks: a phone can be hacked, a chat can be read, and relationships can change. Access should appear when it's actually needed.
Step 5. Write instructions and plan the moment of handover
A list without explanations won't help much. Write in plain words: "First open my email, then log into the bank, here's how to stop the subscriptions, here's where the flat documents are." Most importantly, make sure the instructions reach the right person exactly when you're gone.
How mementomori.digital helps
- You write a separate message to each recipient — up to 5 people. Each is encrypted in your browser.
- While you're in touch and the subscription ($2 a month) is paid, nothing happens.
- If the payment stops, we check several times that you're okay and, if needed, contact your trusted person.
- Only after a manual review does each recipient get their own secure link.
Tip: the best combination is a password manager for the passwords themselves and mementomori for the "master key", instructions and personal words.