Over six decades of settling estates for Ontario families, we’ve watched the nature of what people leave behind change completely. A generation ago, an estate lived in filing cabinets and shoeboxes. Today, a large part of it lives behind passwords. Your digital estate, the online accounts, photos, documents, and subscriptions you’d leave behind, is now as real a part of estate planning as the house and the bank account. And in my experience, it’s the part families are least prepared for.
I’ve seen executors spend weeks trying to get into an email account that held every bill and statement the estate needed. I’ve seen family photo collections effectively lost because nobody knew where they were stored. None of this is rare, and almost all of it is preventable with a few hours of organizing now.
This post walks through the practical steps: what counts as a digital asset, how to inventory it, how to handle passwords safely, and how to make sure the right person can act when the time comes.
Why Your Digital Estate Matters More Than You Think
A digital estate is simply the collection of your online accounts and electronic files: email, banking and investment logins, photos in the cloud, social media profiles, subscriptions, loyalty points, tax records, and even cryptocurrency. When we settle an estate, digital assets and estate planning gaps show up in two painful ways.
First, access. Most online platforms won’t simply hand an executor the keys, even with a death certificate in hand. Each company has its own rules, and without your consent documented in advance, your family may face long delays or permanent lockouts. Cryptocurrency is the extreme case: without the private keys, it can be unrecoverable.
Second, discovery. An executor can’t manage what they don’t know exists. Paper statements used to create a trail. Paperless billing erased it. If your investments, insurance, and bills all arrive by email, your email account becomes the map to the entire estate, and it’s usually locked.
I wrote about the executor’s side of this problem in our post on digital estate planning for executors. This guide is the other half: what you can do now so your own executor never faces it.
Start With a Complete Inventory of Your Digital Assets
Every digital estate plan starts the same way: write down what you have. Set aside an afternoon and list every account and digital asset you can think of. Most people are surprised to find they have 50 or more. Work through categories so nothing slips past:
- Financial: online banking, credit cards, investments, PayPal, cryptocurrency wallets
- Communication: email accounts, messaging apps
- Memories: cloud photo libraries, videos, family history files
- Social: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other profiles
- Money-adjacent: loyalty programs, air miles, gift card balances, tax software
- Practical: utility logins, subscriptions, cloud storage, the devices themselves and their unlock codes
For each item, record the platform, the username, and where the asset lives. Don’t write passwords on this list. The inventory is a map, not a key ring, and it may be seen by more people than you’d share passwords with.
The table below shows how we think about the main categories when we’re settling an estate.
| Digital Asset Type | Why It Matters to the Estate | What to Do Now |
|---|---|---|
| Email accounts | Often the master key to bills, statements, and password resets | Record the account; set up the provider’s legacy or inactive-account tool |
| Financial accounts | Direct monetary value; executors must locate and secure them | List every institution so nothing is missed; never store logins in your will |
| Cloud photos and files | Irreplaceable sentimental value; easily lost forever | Note where they’re stored; consider a shared backup for family treasures |
| Social media | Profiles linger and can be misused | Choose memorial, deletion, or transfer, and appoint a legacy contact where offered |
| Subscriptions and utilities | Ongoing charges drain the estate until cancelled | Keep a list with billing dates so your executor can cancel quickly |
| Cryptocurrency | Unrecoverable without private keys | Document where keys are stored and how to access them, offline and secure |
Organize Access: Passwords, Devices, and Two-Factor Barriers
Once you know what you have, decide how the right person will get in. A reputable password manager is the cleanest solution I’ve seen. It stores every login behind one master password, and most offer an emergency access feature that lets a person you choose request entry after a waiting period.
If you prefer paper, that works too, as long as it’s done carefully: a sealed, dated list kept in a safe or safety deposit box, with its location known to your executor. Update it once or twice a year.
Two details people miss. Your phone’s unlock code matters as much as any password, because two-factor authentication codes usually arrive there. And several major platforms have built-in tools worth ten minutes of setup: Facebook’s legacy contact, Google’s Inactive Account Manager, and Apple’s Legacy Contact each let you name someone to handle that account when you’re gone.
One rule above all: never put passwords in your will. A probated will becomes part of the public court record in Ontario, and everything written in it can be seen. The will can say who gets your digital assets. A separate, secure document should say how to reach them.
Decide What Should Happen to Each Digital Asset
Organizing access is half the job. The other half is recording your wishes. Go back to your inventory and note, for each asset, what you’d like done: keep, transfer, memorial, or delete.
Some questions worth answering while it’s easy:
- Who should receive the family photos, and in what form?
- Should your social media profiles be memorialized or removed?
- Are there emails or files you’d want preserved for the family record?
- Which subscriptions should be cancelled immediately?
- Do any digital assets, like a domain name or monetized channel, have market value the estate should capture?
These wishes belong in writing alongside your inventory. Ask your estate lawyer how best to reference your digital assets in your will or a supporting memorandum, so your executor’s authority over them is as clear as possible.
Choose the Right Person to Manage Your Digital Estate
Your executor will be responsible for your digital estate along with everything else, so tell them it exists and where your inventory lives. That single conversation prevents most of the problems we see.
Some families go further and identify a digital executor, a tech-comfortable person who handles the online accounts while the main executor manages the broader estate. If your named executor still uses a flip phone, that’s worth considering, and your lawyer can advise how to structure it.
Whoever takes the role, set them up to succeed. Our post on how to take charge as an estate executor covers the mindset, and our Executor’s Roadmap lays out the full sequence of an Ontario estate, from probate through the final accounting.
Keep Your Digital Estate Plan Current
A digital estate plan isn’t a one-time project. Accounts open and close, passwords change, and platforms retire their tools. In my experience, a plan more than two or three years old is nearly as unhelpful as no plan at all.
Put a recurring note in your calendar to review the inventory once a year. Confirm your emergency access settings still name the right person. Check that your executor still knows where everything is. If you’re a senior managing this for the first time, or an adult child helping a parent, our guide on protecting and managing digital assets for seniors and executors pairs well with this one.
And remember that the digital estate is one thread of a larger picture. When a family engages our estate settlement service, the digital inventory sits alongside the home, the contents, and the paperwork as part of one coordinated project, which is exactly how it should feel to the people you love.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a digital estate?
A digital estate is the collection of digital assets a person leaves behind: online accounts, email, cloud photos and files, social media profiles, subscriptions, loyalty points, and digital currency. It includes both the content itself and the rights to control it, which is why it belongs in your estate plan.
What happens to digital assets when someone dies?
Digital assets don’t disappear, but they can become very hard to reach. Each platform sets its own rules for granting access after a death, and executors without documented consent or credentials often face delays, denials, or permanent lockouts. Planning ahead, through inventories, legacy contacts, and secure password storage, is what keeps assets reachable.
Should I put my passwords in my will?
No. A will that goes through probate becomes part of the public court record, so passwords written in it are exposed. Keep passwords in a password manager or a sealed document stored securely, and let your will state who inherits the assets rather than how to log in.
What is a digital executor?
A digital executor is the person you designate to carry out your wishes for your digital assets, closing accounts, preserving files, and transferring what has value. Ask your estate lawyer how to reflect the role properly in your Ontario estate plan so their authority is clear.
Can my executor access my online accounts?
Only if you’ve planned for it. Most platform terms of service restrict access to the account holder, even after death, so your executor’s practical access depends on the tools you set up in advance: legacy contacts, emergency access in a password manager, or documented credentials stored securely.
Digital estates feel overwhelming only when they’re invisible. An afternoon spent on an inventory, an hour setting up legacy contacts, and one honest conversation with your executor will spare your family weeks of frustration at the worst possible time. If you’re organizing your own affairs or settling an estate that includes a tangle of accounts and devices, our team is happy to talk it through. Book a free consultation, no pressure, just clarity on what comes next.
Barry Gordon is a partner at Gordons Downsizing & Estate Services Ltd. Brokerage, a fully licensed Ontario real estate brokerage serving executors, families, and seniors since 1958, and a co-founder of MaxSold, the online estate auction platform.
