Digital Inheritance: What Happens to Your Crypto, Photos, and Files

Think about everything that exists only on your phone, your laptop, and in your cloud accounts. Thirty years of family photos in iCloud. A cryptocurrency portfolio worth tens of thousands of dollars. Email archives going back decades. A Spotify library you've curated for years. Loyalty points worth hundreds of dollars across airlines and hotels.

Now consider: if something happened to you tomorrow, could your family access any of it?

For most people, the answer is no. Your digital life is protected by passwords, biometrics, and two-factor authentication that do exactly what they're designed to do—keep everyone out. Including the people you'd actually want to let in.

This is the digital inheritance problem, and it's getting bigger every year as more of our lives move online. The solution isn't complicated, but it does require some planning.

I didn't think seriously about this until a close friend's father passed away unexpectedly. Her family knew he had cryptocurrency — he'd mentioned it at dinner once — but they had no idea which exchange, no login, and no seed phrase. After months of trying, they gave up. That conversation changed how I thought about my own digital accounts and what I'd actually left documented.

What Are Digital Assets?

Your digital assets are broader than you think. They fall into several categories:

Financial Digital Assets

• Cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies stored in wallets or on exchanges. This is the highest-stakes category—more on this below.
• Online banking and investment accounts. While the underlying money is recoverable through traditional estate processes, the account access and transaction history may not be.
• Payment platforms. PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Zelle—any platform that holds funds or has linked financial accounts.
• Online business income. If you earn money from a website, app, YouTube channel, or online store, that revenue stream is a digital asset.

Sentimental Digital Assets

• Photos and videos. For many families, this is the most valuable category emotionally. Decades of memories stored in iCloud, Google Photos, or on local devices.
• Email archives. Personal correspondence, important records, and family history buried in email accounts.
• Documents in cloud storage. Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive—files that may include everything from tax records to family recipes.
• Social media content. Posts, messages, and photos on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms.

Account-Based Assets

• Email accounts. Often the master key to everything else—password resets for most services go through email.
• Streaming services. Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Premium. While these can't be "inherited," purchased content within them may be.
• Gaming accounts. Steam libraries, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation accounts—these can represent hundreds or thousands of dollars in purchased content.
• Subscription services. Ongoing subscriptions that need to be canceled or transferred.

Intellectual Property and Business Assets

• Domain names. These have real monetary value and need to be renewed or they're lost.
• Websites and blogs. Content you've created, hosting accounts, and any associated revenue.
• Creative works. Manuscripts, designs, music, code repositories—anything you've created digitally.
• Professional accounts. LinkedIn, professional portfolios, industry platforms.

Loyalty and Rewards

• Airline miles. Major airlines have different transfer-on-death policies. Some allow transfer, some don't.
• Credit card points. Most card rewards can be redeemed by the estate, but policies vary.
• Hotel loyalty points. Similar to airline miles—policies vary by program.
• Store credits and gift cards. These are technically financial instruments with value.

Why Digital Assets Get Lost

The reasons are predictable and largely preventable.

Passwords die with the person. If nobody knows your passwords—or even which accounts you have—everything behind those passwords is effectively gone. Your family may not even know what to look for.

Two-factor authentication locks everyone out. That extra layer of security you set up to protect your accounts? It works perfectly—including against your family. If your authenticator app is on your locked phone and nobody has the code, account recovery becomes extremely difficult or impossible.

Family doesn't know the assets exist. You might have a brokerage account your spouse doesn't know about, or cryptocurrency on an exchange your family has never heard of. If they don't know it exists, they can't claim it.

Terms of Service complicate things. Most platform terms of service state that accounts are non-transferable. While laws like RUFADAA (the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, adopted by most states) give executors some rights, platform policies can still create obstacles.

The licensed-vs.-owned distinction. That iTunes library of 3,000 songs? You don't own them—you licensed them, and licenses are typically non-transferable. The same applies to Kindle books, digital movies, and most app purchases. Your family may lose access to content you've "bought" over decades.

Cryptocurrency: The Highest-Stakes Category

Cryptocurrency deserves special attention because the stakes are absolute. With traditional financial accounts, there are recovery mechanisms—banks know who you are, courts can order access, beneficiaries can claim assets through established processes.

Cryptocurrency has no such safety net. If you hold crypto in a self-custody wallet (not on an exchange), the private keys or seed phrase are the only way to access it. There is no customer service to call. There is no bank to petition. There is no court order that can unlock a blockchain wallet.

Lost keys = permanently lost funds. This isn't theoretical. An estimated 20% of all Bitcoin is believed to be permanently inaccessible due to lost keys. Billions of dollars, gone forever.

What your family needs to access your crypto:

For exchange-based holdings (Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, etc.):

• The exchange name and your login credentials
• Your two-factor authentication method (and backup codes)
• Knowledge that the account exists

Exchange-based crypto can be recovered through the exchange's estate process, similar to a bank account. It's slower and more complicated, but possible.

For self-custody wallets (hardware wallets, software wallets):

• The seed phrase (typically 12 or 24 words). This is the master key.
• The wallet device or software name
• Any additional passwords or PINs for the wallet

For multi-signature wallets:

• Information about all required signers
• The threshold for transactions (e.g., 2-of-3)
• Contact information for other key holders

How to protect your crypto for your family:

1. Write down your seed phrases. Store them in a fireproof safe or split them between two secure locations.
2. Document which exchanges and wallets you use.
3. Store access instructions in an encrypted vault with emergency access.
4. Consider a multi-signature setup for large holdings—this distributes the keys so no single person (or single lost key) can lock out access.
5. Never store seed phrases in an unencrypted digital file, email draft, or note on your phone.

How Major Platforms Handle Death

Each platform has its own process. Here's what the major ones offer:

Google (Inactive Account Manager). Google lets you configure what happens to your account after a period of inactivity (3, 6, 12, or 18 months). You can designate trusted contacts who receive access to your data, choose which services to share, and optionally have the account deleted after notification. Set this up at myaccount.google.com/inactive.

Apple (Digital Legacy Program). Apple lets you designate Legacy Contacts who can access your Apple account data after your death. You generate an access key that you share with your contacts. After your death, they submit the access key along with a death certificate to Apple. Set this up in Settings → [Your Name] → Sign-In & Security → Legacy Contact.

Facebook/Meta (Legacy Contact). You can designate a Legacy Contact who can manage your memorialized account—pinning posts, responding to friend requests, updating your profile picture. Alternatively, you can request that your account be permanently deleted after death. Set this up in Settings → Memorialization Settings.

Microsoft (Next of Kin process). Microsoft provides access to a deceased user's account content through their Next of Kin process, which requires a death certificate, proof of relationship, and other documentation.

Amazon. Amazon accounts are generally non-transferable. The estate can request account closure and refund of gift card balances. Kindle content is licensed, not owned, and may not be transferable.

Streaming services (Netflix, Spotify, etc.). These are subscription services that can be canceled. Playlists and preferences are generally lost. Spotify allows transfer in some cases through their estate process.

The Legal Framework

The legal landscape for digital assets has improved significantly in recent years.

RUFADAA (Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act) has been adopted by most US states. It gives executors and other fiduciaries the legal authority to access digital assets as part of estate administration—but with important conditions:

1. The user's specific platform settings (like Google's Inactive Account Manager) take precedence
2. The user's estate plan (will, trust) comes second
3. The platform's terms of service come third
4. State default rules apply last

This means your proactive choices—setting up legacy contacts and documenting your wishes—carry the most legal weight.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) can technically make it a crime to access someone else's accounts, even after death, even with good intentions. RUFADAA provides a legal framework that helps, but the safest path is always to use each platform's official legacy tools.

What to Do Now: Your Digital Inheritance Action Plan

Step 1: Create a Digital Asset Inventory

List every account, platform, and digital asset you have. Include:

• Account name and URL
• Username or email used
• Whether it holds financial value, sentimental value, or both
• How it's accessed (password, biometric, hardware key)

You'll likely be surprised by how many accounts you have. Most adults have 100+ online accounts.

Step 2: Set Up Platform Legacy Tools

For the major platforms you use:

• Google: Configure Inactive Account Manager
• Apple: Set up Legacy Contacts
• Facebook: Designate a Legacy Contact
• Any financial platforms: Review their estate/beneficiary processes

These are free and take minutes to configure. They provide the most straightforward path for your family.

Step 3: Document Access Information Securely

Your family needs a way to access your accounts. This means:

• Store credentials in an encrypted password manager or secure vault
• Include two-factor authentication backup codes
• Document your master password or provide a way to access the vault
• Make sure at least one trusted person knows how to find this information

Our password sharing guide covers how to do this without creating security risks.

Step 4: Include Digital Assets in Your Estate Plan

Talk to your estate attorney about including digital assets in your will or trust. Specifically:

• Name a digital executor (someone tech-savvy you trust)
• Specify your wishes for each category of assets
• Reference where your digital asset inventory and access information are stored

Step 5: Tell Someone

Consider what happened to a family whose mother had carefully documented her accounts and passwords — but stored everything in a Google Doc in her own Drive. When she passed, her daughter knew the document existed but had no way to log in. It took three weeks and multiple rounds of Google's account recovery process before they could access a file that had been organized specifically to help them. The information was there. The access wasn't.

The inventory and access information are useless if nobody knows they exist. At minimum, one trusted person should know:

• That you've documented your digital assets
• Where to find the documentation
• How to access it (or how to trigger emergency access)

Our emergency access guide explains how configurable emergency access works—your information stays private during normal life but becomes available to the right person when needed.

What Not to Do

Don't share passwords in plain text. An email or text message with your passwords is a security risk that lasts forever and is trivially easy for the wrong person to find.

Don't assume your family will figure it out. They won't know which exchange holds your cryptocurrency, which cloud service has your photos, or which email is your "real" email. The information needs to be documented.

Don't ignore terms of service. Sharing passwords violates most platforms' terms of service. Using each platform's official legacy tools is both more effective and legally safer.

Don't do this once and forget about it. Your digital life changes constantly—new accounts, new platforms, new assets. Review your digital inventory at least annually. Our what happens to online accounts guide covers the ongoing management in more detail.

The document storage guide covers how digital asset documentation fits into your broader document organization strategy.

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Protect your digital assets alongside your physical ones. Kinfile lets you securely store instructions for your digital accounts, credentials, and access information—with emergency access so your trusted contacts can find what they need when they need it. Get organized in about an hour.