What happens to online accounts when someone dies
Nothing happens on its own. Email, social media, photo storage and subscriptions stay open after a death until someone asks each company to act. Subscriptions keep charging. Profiles keep sending birthday reminders. Most families find the accounts one at a time, often months later.
This page explains what usually happens, what platforms ask for, and where to start.
Each platform has its own process
There is no single place to report a death online. Each company has its own form, its own list of documents and its own wait. Most offer some of the following:
- Memorialize. The profile stays up, marked as a remembrance, and no one can log in. Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn offer this.
- Close or delete. The account and its contents are removed. This usually cannot be undone.
- Release data or funds. A copy of photos or messages, or a balance held in the account. Platforms are strict about this, and some ask for a court order.
The platform decides what it will do. A request is a request.
What platforms usually ask for
- Proof of death. A death certificate, and for some memorial requests an obituary link.
- Proof of your relationship or authority. For closing an account, many platforms ask for immediate-family proof or executor paperwork, such as Letters Testamentary.
- Your own ID, for some platforms.
No legitimate process asks for the person's password. Signing in as someone who has died, even with a password the family knows, can lock the account and make the official request harder.
Three things to decide before you start
- What the family wants to keep. Closing an account usually deletes everything in it. Photos, documents and messages have to be saved or requested first.
- Memorialize or close. A memorialized profile stays as a place to remember. A closed one is gone.
- What is still charging a card. Subscriptions are often the most urgent. The card statement is the quickest list.
Where to start
The executor's digital-accounts checklist walks through it in order. Our platform guides explain each company's process:
If you would rather hand it over
We check your loved one's identifiers against the platforms people actually use, confirm what each one requires, and submit the closure or memorialization requests through each platform's official process. We work from a death certificate and proof of authority. We never ask for a password. When the last platform has replied, you receive one closure report covering every platform we checked, including where no account was found.
Bank, investment, payment and government accounts are not part of our services. Those stay with the executor, and we give you a list of what we found.
Standard Closure is $300. Custom Closure, which adds the accounts you name, is $400. The fee is agreed before we begin. We do not give legal advice; for questions about the estate, an estate attorney is the right person.