What happens to Apple accounts when the owner dies

Apple itemizes it. A Legacy Contact can access iCloud Photos, Notes, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Messages in iCloud, call history, files stored in iCloud Drive, Health Data, Voice Memos, Safari bookmarks and Reading List, and anything included in an iCloud Backup. End-to-end encrypted categories such as health data and voice memos are unlocked with the access key. Four categories are excluded: purchased content such as movies, music, and books; subscriptions and in-app purchases; payment information for Apple Account or Apple Pay; and information stored in iCloud Keychain, such as user names and passwords entered in Safari, internet accounts, auto-fill credit card information, and Wi-Fi passwords. Access runs three years from approval of the first Legacy Contact account request, after which the account is permanently deleted.

On their own Apple device (Settings > their name > Sign-In & Security > Legacy Contact > Request Access) or on the web at [Apple's Digital Legacy site](https://digital-legacy.apple.com), verifying their identity, entering the access key, and uploading the death certificate. Apple emails a confirmation of receipt, also emails the Apple Account for which access was requested, reviews and verifies the request, and emails again when the review is complete or more information is needed. On approval the Legacy Contact receives a separate Legacy Contact Apple Account and creates a new password and two-factor authentication for it — the decedent's own password is never used, and the original Apple Account stops working. Activation Lock is removed from devices that used it. Uploaded documents must be PDF, PNG, TIF, JPEG, or GIF at a resolution of at least 300 dpi or 3300 x 2550 pixels, flat and fully legible with all four edges visible. A request to permanently delete a deceased person's account instead is started at [Apple's Digital Legacy deletion site](https://digital-legacy-account.apple.com).

They do not pass to an heir. Two separate provisions produce that result. The iCloud Terms, Section IV.D ("No Right of Survivorship"), state that "any rights to your Account or Content within your Account terminate upon your death," except as allowed under Digital Legacy. And Digital Legacy does not allow it: Apple names purchased movies, music, and books, and subscriptions and in-app purchases, as data a Legacy Contact cannot access. The Media Services Terms separately license apps rather than sell them — apps are "licensed, not sold," under a nontransferable license. (The Media Services Terms themselves contain no death clause; the termination-on-death provision is in the iCloud Terms.) Family Sharing access to the organizer's purchases ends when their account is terminated.

Apple documents no will-based route. Where there is no Legacy Contact access key, the only path Apple publishes for the U.S., Israel, and other locales is a court order naming the requester as the rightful inheritor of the deceased's personal information — and Apple asks that the order itself recite that the requestor is the decedent's legal personal representative, agent, or heir "whose authorization constitutes lawful consent." The way to avoid the court order entirely is to add a Legacy Contact during life. France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand accept alternative documentation instead of a court order.

Apple states that Activation Lock is removed automatically after a Legacy Contact request or an account deletion request is completed. Otherwise Apple says it "might be able to help remove Activation Lock" from devices that were signed into the original Apple Account. In every case the device has to be erased and restored before it can be used with another Apple Account, and Apple states that devices locked with a passcode are protected by passcode encryption and that it cannot help remove the passcode lock without erasing the device.

Apple lists information stored in iCloud Keychain — user names and passwords entered in Safari, internet accounts used in Mail, Contacts, Calendar and Messages, auto-fill credit card information, and Wi-Fi passwords — among the data a Legacy Contact cannot access. Apple's own platform security documentation explains why: the keying information a beneficiary receives "doesn't encompass the information necessary to decrypt the decedent's iCloud Keychain." So unlike Health Data and Voice Memos, which the access key does unlock, Keychain is carved out. Where the deceased's passwords were stored only in Keychain, this pathway does not reach them.