What is a digital estate (and why it matters)

Your digital estate is everything you hold or use online, plus the devices that open it.
Providers will not hand your passwords to anyone, and many delete inactive accounts within one or two years.
Most people have no plan. A short list and a few settings solve most of the problem.

“Digital estate” is an everyday phrase, not a legal term. We found no statutory UK definition. On this site it means everything you own or use online, and the phones and computers that get you into it.

Some of it has money value. Much of it matters for other reasons: the photos, the emails, the documents nobody printed. Which? found in 2023 that 77% of the members it surveyed had digital assets of sentimental value, and 35% had assets with money value.

What it covers

The Law Commission of England and Wales, in its work on digital assets, referred to “digital files, digital records, email accounts, domain names, in-game digital assets, digital carbon credits, crypto-tokens and non-fungible tokens”. For most households the list looks more ordinary:

email accounts, where password resets and account notices arrive
photos and documents in iCloud, Google Photos, OneDrive or Dropbox
money held in PayPal, Revolut, Monzo, Starling, Wise and similar apps
social media profiles
subscriptions that charge a card every month
domain names and websites
phones, laptops and tablets, and the PINs that unlock them

If you hold crypto, that needs its own planning: see our sister site on crypto inheritance.

Owned or only licensed

Not everything you paid for can be passed on. Which? notes that purchased music, films and ebooks are usually licensed rather than owned, so they generally cannot be transferred. The same goes for most subscriptions and for Avios.

PayPal funds, cloud photos and documents, some loyalty points (Tesco Clubcard and Nectar, for example) and crypto can be.

In the US, the model law most states use (RUFADAA) defines a digital asset as “an electronic record in which an individual has a right or interest”. It excludes the underlying asset, so a bank balance you check online is not itself a digital asset under that definition. The bank account is dealt with like any other.

Why it needs a plan

Providers will not give out passwords

Google’s form for deceased users says: “We cannot provide passwords or other login details.” X says it is “unable to provide account access to anyone regardless of their relationship to the deceased.” No platform we checked hands over login details to family.

Accounts disappear

Inactivity rules mean an unused account can be deleted while the family is still sorting out the funeral and the will:

Outlook.com and OneDrive accounts are frozen after one year without a sign-in, and the email and files are deleted shortly after.
Yahoo Mail deletes the contents of a mailbox not opened for 12 months.
Free Dropbox Basic accounts close after 12 months without activity.
Google may delete a personal account that has not been used for two years, including Gmail, Drive and Photos.

The formal routes are slow and often American

Without a plan, families depend on each provider’s bereavement process. Google says that where Google LLC provides the account, a family whose data request is approved will still need a court order issued in the United States. Microsoft needs “a valid subpoena or court order” and does not guarantee it can help.

The law has not caught up

In 2024, Which? said there were no legal rules for how digital assets are dealt with when you die. The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 confirms that digital things can be personal property in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. It says nothing about wills, executors or access to online accounts, so it does not give families a way in.

How few people plan

In a Which? survey of 14,631 members of its Connect panel (April 2024), 76% had no plan for their digital assets after death. Only 18% had left directions for accessing accounts, and 3% had put anything in their will. Law Society research published in 2021 found that 93% of people with a will had not included any digital assets.

The good news is that the fixes are small. Google, Apple and Facebook all let you name someone in advance, and several password managers let a trusted person request your vault.

Where to start

Work through the digital estate planning checklist, starting with a digital asset inventory. If you use a password manager, check whether it has emergency access for a trusted contact.

If someone has already died and you are dealing with their accounts, go to closing accounts in a sensible order instead.