Planning ahead for your Apple accounts

Steps you can take now to control who receives Apple Inc. accounts

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Apple Digital Legacy

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Verified Jul 2026

Apple Inc. has a transfer process for Apple accounts after the account holder dies. Lifetime planning complements this by giving the account holder direct control over accounts while alive.

How to protect your Apple accounts

9 lifetime planning steps for your Apple accounts:

1
Add a Legacy Contact. On an Apple device running iOS 15.2, iPadOS 15.2, or macOS Monterey 12.1 or later: Settings > [your name] > Sign-In & Security > Legacy Contact. Two-factor authentication must be on. This is the step that decides which pathway the family gets: with a Legacy Contact, access takes an access key and a death certificate; without one, Apple requires a court order. More than one Legacy Contact can be designated, and per Apple any one of them can individually make decisions about the account data after death, including permanently deleting it.
2
Get the access key into the Legacy Contact's hands and into the estate file. Apple offers Send an iMessage (which stores a copy in the contact's Apple Account settings) or Print a Copy. Apple states the access key "is extremely important" — the Legacy Contact needs both the access key and the death certificate to request access, and needs the key again to finish setting up the Legacy Contact Apple Account. Apple cannot access or replace a lost key, so a printed copy stored with the estate planning documents is the failsafe.
3
Review your Family Sharing setup. If you are the organizer, family members will lose access to shared subscriptions (Apple Music, iCloud+, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness+, Apple News+) when your account is terminated. Consider whether another family member should be the organizer.
4
Download critical data locally. Use the Archive or Copy feature in each app, or use privacy.apple.com to request a full copy of your data. Export Photos, iCloud Drive files, Contacts (vCard), Calendars (ICS), and Notes (PDF).
5
Consider exporting Health data as a backup. A Legacy Contact can reach end-to-end encrypted data such as Health and Voice Memos using the access key, but keeping an independent copy is a safeguard if no Legacy Contact is set up. Use the Health app's "Export All Health Data" feature to save an XML backup.
6
Know the two carve-outs, because a Legacy Contact does not close them. iCloud Keychain (payment information, passwords, and passkeys) is excluded from Legacy Contact access, so passwords held only in Keychain do not reach the executor through this pathway — a separate password manager with its own estate mechanism is the alternative. Purchased movies, music, books, and subscriptions are likewise excluded and are licensed rather than sold, so they do not pass to an heir on any documented path.
7
Record the Apple Account (the email address or phone number it uses) in the estate file. Apple identifies the account by it on every pathway, including the court-order route.
8
Note the pathway in the estate planning documents. Apple's own guidance is that adding a Legacy Contact, or an inheritance plan in a will covering information stored on devices and in iCloud, "can simplify the process of acquiring a legal order" — the will supports the court-order route rather than replacing it.
9
For Apple Developer accounts: Apple documents a transfer of the Account Holder role, which is handled through Apple Developer Support and is separate from Digital Legacy.

Family sharing

Apple Family Sharing allows up to 6 people to share subscriptions and purchases. When the organizer's account is terminated, family members lose access to shared subscriptions and to content the organizer purchased. Each member retains their own purchases. The Digital Legacy program is separate from Family Sharing: a Legacy Contact can be anyone (not only a family member), and each contact receives an independent access key. An account holder can designate more than one Legacy Contact, and per Apple's setup page any one of them "can individually make decisions about your account data after your death, including permanently deleting it." A Legacy Contact does not need an Apple device or an Apple Account, though they must be over 13 (the age varies by country or region).

Should you save your passwords for your family?

Some people store account passwords so a family member can sign in later. The practice has three practical limits:

  • Two-factor authentication often blocks it. Most accounts require a second factor — a code sent to a phone, an authenticator app, a passkey, or a physical key. A saved password alone frequently does not grant access, and the recovery codes that would are easy to lose or let go stale.
  • It usually conflicts with the platform's terms. Most operators prohibit account sharing and signing in as another person, including after a death. Stored credentials are not the operator's recognized access path, and using them can violate the terms of service.
  • Operators provide other paths. Where an operator offers a designation tool — Apple's Legacy Contact, Google's Inactive Account Manager, a beneficiary designation — that mechanism grants access the operator recognizes. A password manager's own emergency-access or legacy feature passes credentials through a controlled process. Digital assets named in a will or trust give a fiduciary authority under each state's Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA).

Frequently asked questions

Go to Settings > [your name] > Sign-In & Security > Legacy Contact on an Apple device running iOS 15.2, iPadOS 15.2, or macOS Monterey 12.1 or later. Two-factor authentication must be on. More than one Legacy Contact can be designated, and Apple states that any one of them can individually make decisions about the account data after death, including permanently deleting it. A Legacy Contact does not need an Apple device or an Apple Account. Apple shares the access key by iMessage (which stores a copy in the contact's Apple Account settings) or by printing a copy — Apple cannot access or replace a lost access key, so a printed copy stored with the estate documents is the failsafe.

Set up one or more Legacy Contacts and give each the access key (store a printed copy with your estate documents), since without one your family would need a court order. A Legacy Contact can reach most data with the access key, including end-to-end encrypted Health data and Voice Memos, but two things stay out of reach: iCloud Keychain (move passwords into a password manager that has its own estate-planning mechanism) and purchased movies, music, and books (a nontransferable license). You can also request a full copy of your data at privacy.apple.com as an added backup.

Recording that a Apple account exists, alongside other accounts, gives a fiduciary the information needed to reach the operator through its official process.

SimplyTrustSimplyTrust Editorial·

Sources

Data sourced from Apple Inc. primary sources (13 pages reviewed). How we research.