Digital Legacy: How to Leave Your Passwords to Your Family
Banking apps, email, photo libraries, the password manager that unlocks everything else: most of our lives sit behind passwords that only we know. A digital legacy plan makes sure the right people can get in when it matters, and nobody can get in before.
What happens to your passwords when you die
Without a plan, families spend months locked out of accounts, trying to prove who they are to companies that, rightly, don't hand out access easily. Photos are lost, subscriptions keep charging and important documents stay out of reach. Some services offer their own legacy or inactive-account features. Use them, but they cover one service at a time.
What to include
- The master key: the password to your password manager, plus its recovery code. This one secret often unlocks almost everything else.
- Your phone and computer: device passcodes, which also guard two-factor codes.
- Two-factor recovery codes for email and other critical accounts.
- A map of accounts: banks, insurance, pensions, crypto, domains, cloud storage, social media, and what you'd like done with each.
- Personal wishes: a letter, what to keep, what to close, what to delete.
Common approaches and their weak spots
- A notebook in a drawer: anyone who finds it has everything, and it is often out of date.
- Telling one person everything: it relies on that person being available, careful and trustworthy, for years.
- Putting passwords in a will: wills can be read by several people and are hard to update.
- Sending passwords by email or chat: they stay in message history, on several devices and backups, long after you meant them to.
Recoverable together, private until then
A threshold approach splits trust. You choose, say, three people out of five who must come together to unlock what you left. One person alone, or two, learn nothing. Losing one or two holders doesn't lock your family out.
ShareMySecret does this on your iPhone. Write your instructions and passwords as a secret (you can attach files too), choose the recipients and the threshold, and the app encrypts it on your device with AES-256 and splits the key using Shamir's Secret Sharing. Nothing goes to a server and there is no account to remember.
A simple digital legacy checklist
- List your important accounts and what should happen to each.
- Gather the master password, device passcodes and recovery codes.
- Choose your key holders and a threshold, for example 3 of 5.
- Create the secret and share the keys. Each holder needs ShareMySecret on their own iPhone.
- Tell your holders what they hold and who the other holders are.
- Mention in your will that this plan exists, without putting passwords in it.
- Review once a year or when you change your master password.
Holding crypto too? See the crypto inheritance guide.
Try it with your own secret
ShareMySecret is free to download for iPhone. No account, nothing stored on our servers.
Frequently asked questions
How do I leave my passwords to my family?
The simplest robust approach is to protect the master password of your password manager, your device passcodes and recovery codes in one place that only a group of trusted people can open together, and to tell them that the plan exists.
Is it safe to write my passwords in my will?
It is usually not a good idea. Wills can be read by several people and are not easy to update when passwords change. Mention that a plan exists and keep the passwords protected separately.
What if I change a password after setting this up?
Update the plan. In ShareMySecret that means creating a new secret with the new information and sharing its keys again. Storing the master password of a password manager means you rarely need to.
Do my family members need the app?
Yes. Each person who holds a key share needs ShareMySecret on their own iPhone to receive and store it, and to combine shares when the time comes.