What Happens to Facebook, Instagram, and Email Accounts When Someone Passes Away
How to memorialize a Facebook profile, set up a legacy contact, and request account removal for a deceased person's social media and email accounts.
Set up a Facebook Legacy Contact now
~26sQuick Tip
Tell your legacy contact that you have named them and what your wishes are. A surprise notification at the time of death is harder to process than prior knowledge.
Configure Google's Inactive Account Manager
~19sRequest memorialization or removal for a deceased person
~17sHandle email accounts
~25sWarning
If a loved one's email is needed to reset other accounts (banks, utilities), prioritize getting access to it. Contact the email provider's support line directly and explain the situation — be prepared to provide a death certificate.
Include digital accounts in your estate plan
~17sYou Did It!
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When someone passes away, their digital life does not automatically disappear. Social media profiles, email accounts, and other online services remain active unless someone takes action — and the process for handling each platform is different.
Knowing these processes in advance — either to plan for your own accounts or to help manage a loved one's — saves confusion and distress at an already difficult time.
Facebook offers two options for a deceased person's account: memorialization or removal. A memorialized account is converted to a tribute page where friends can still share memories. The word "Remembering" appears before the name. To request memorialization, go to facebook.com/help and search for "memorialization request" — you will need to provide proof of death.
Facebook also allows you to designate a "Legacy Contact" while you are alive — a person who can manage your account after you pass (change the profile photo, pin a tribute post, respond to friend requests). Set this up in Settings → Your Facebook Information → Memorialization Settings.
Instagram allows memorialization of accounts or removal upon request from a verified family member or representative. Like Facebook, it requires documentation of the death. Go to instagram.com/help and search for "deceased person."
Google (Gmail, YouTube, Google Photos)
Google has an "Inactive Account Manager" feature that allows you to plan what happens to your account if you stop using it. You can designate a trusted person to receive a notification and potentially access your data, or instruct Google to delete everything after a period of inactivity. Set this up at myaccount.google.com/inactive-account-manager.
After a death, family members can also submit a request to access content or close a Google account through Google's deceased user process at support.google.com.
Email accounts in general
Email is especially important because password reset links for other accounts are sent there. If you cannot access a loved one's email, recovering their other accounts becomes extremely difficult. Ideally, email login details should be part of a digital access plan.
Quick Tip: The most thoughtful thing you can do today is designate a Facebook Legacy Contact and set up Google's Inactive Account Manager. Both take less than five minutes.
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