Digital Legacy & Probate UK: Plan Your Online Estate
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Most of us now live a large part of our lives online. Photographs sit in cloud storage, money sits in online banking and crypto wallets, relationships play out over social media, and working lives are documented on professional platforms. When someone dies, all of that remains behind, and families are often left guessing at passwords, account names, and what the person would have wanted done with it all.
Planning for your digital legacy is about making those decisions in advance, writing them down, and giving someone the authority to carry them out. This guide explains what a digital legacy is, how it fits alongside a Will in England and Wales, and the practical steps you can take to make things easier for the people you leave behind.
Overview
A digital legacy is the collection of online accounts, files, and records that continue to exist after a person dies. It covers the obvious things such as email inboxes, Facebook and Instagram profiles, WhatsApp history, and iCloud or Google Drive storage.
It also covers financial assets that exist only in digital form, including cryptocurrency wallets, PayPal balances, online-only bank accounts, and shares held through investment apps. Subscription services, domain names, loyalty points, and even gaming accounts with real monetary value all form part of this picture.
In practical terms, a digital legacy has two sides. The first is sentimental, the photos, messages, and memories that loved ones may want to preserve or delete. The second is financial and administrative, the assets that have a monetary value and must be identified, valued, and distributed as part of the estate during probate. Both sides need thought, and neither is handled automatically by a standard Will unless you have planned for it.
Key steps
- Make a list of your digital accounts. Write down every online account you hold, from email and social media to banking, investment platforms, and any cryptocurrency wallets. Include a note on what each account contains and roughly how important it is. Do not write passwords on this list itself, keep those separate using a reputable password manager.
- Decide what should happen to each account. For every account, think about whether you want it closed, memorialised, transferred, or deleted. Sentimental accounts such as photo libraries may need to pass to family members, while subscription services simply need cancelling. Financial accounts must be valued and distributed in line with your Will.
- Use platform tools where they exist. Google offers an Inactive Account Manager and Facebook allows you to nominate a Legacy Contact. Apple has a Digital Legacy programme for iCloud content. Set these up now while you still have access, because after death the platforms rarely hand over account access to family without these nominations in place.
- Appoint a digital executor in your Will. Name someone you trust who is comfortable with technology and willing to take on the task. Make clear in the Will that this person has authority to access, manage, and close your digital accounts, and that this role sits alongside your main executors rather than replacing them.
- Store instructions securely and tell someone where they are. A password manager with an emergency access feature is usually the safest option. Your digital executor needs to know the manager exists and how to unlock it when the time comes, otherwise your careful planning will not reach them.
Common questions
If you're dealing with this kind of situation, a call with an experienced legal adviser can help you work out the right next step — from £89.
Common questions
Q Does my Will automatically cover my online accounts?
Not really. A standard Will deals with your legal estate, but most online accounts are governed by the terms and conditions you agreed to when you signed up, and many of those terminate on death. Without specific instructions and a named digital executor, your personal representatives may struggle to gain access to accounts, recover sentimental content, or even confirm what you held.
Q Is cryptocurrency part of my estate for probate?
Yes. Cryptocurrency and other digital assets with monetary value form part of the estate in England and Wales and must be valued for inheritance tax purposes. The practical difficulty is access. Without the private keys or seed phrases, the assets can be effectively unrecoverable, so storing this information safely and making sure your executor can reach it is essential.
Q Can I appoint someone different as my digital executor?
You can. Many people choose a tech-confident friend or younger relative to handle digital matters, even where a different person acts as the main executor of the Will. The digital executor does not have a separate legal status in England and Wales, so the authority needs to be set out clearly in the Will itself to avoid conflict between the roles.
Q What happens to a social media account if I do nothing?
Each platform has its own rules. Facebook and Instagram will usually memorialise or remove a profile on request with proof of death. X, TikTok, and LinkedIn have their own processes, often requiring a death certificate and evidence of your relationship. Without nominations in place, access to the content held inside the account is typically not granted.
Q Should I write my passwords in my Will?
No. A Will becomes a public document once probate is granted, so anything written in it can be read by anyone. Passwords, PINs, and recovery phrases should be stored separately, ideally in an encrypted password manager with an emergency access feature, or in a sealed document held somewhere secure alongside clear instructions for your executor.
Q Do digital assets affect inheritance tax?
They can. Cryptocurrency, online investment portfolios, and monetisable digital assets such as domains or online businesses all count towards the value of the estate. If the total estate exceeds the inheritance tax thresholds, these digital holdings must be declared to HMRC. Sentimental items like photos generally have no taxable value, but financial digital assets certainly do.
If you're dealing with this kind of situation, a call with an experienced legal adviser can help you work out the right next step — from £89.
Sources
This guide is based on primary UK law and official guidance.
- Guidance · UK GovGOV.UK – Making a Willgov.uk
- Guidance · UK GovGOV.UK – Applying for Probategov.uk
- Guidance · UK GovGOV.UK – Valuing the Estate of Someone Who's Diedgov.uk
- Guidance · HMRCHMRC – Cryptoassets Manualgov.uk
Legal helpline
Unsure how to handle digital assets in your Will?
Digital accounts, crypto holdings, and cloud storage do not always fit neatly into a standard Will, and the rules differ from one platform to the next. An experienced legal adviser can talk through your situation on the phone and help you think about what to include, based on what you describe.
- Plain-English answers to your specific questions about digital legacy
- Practical perspective on how to structure a digital executor role in your Will
- Clarity on how online accounts and crypto may fit into your estate
- A clearer sense of your next steps based on what you describe
Legal disclaimer
This article is for general information only. It is a tool to help you find your way — not legal advice, and not a substitute for speaking to a qualified adviser about your situation.