How to protect your Microsoft account while you are alive
There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Microsoft account. While the account holder is alive, Microsoft allows authorized users.
Microsoft decides requests about a Microsoft account after a death case by case, so nothing in its terms promises a survivor anything; what the account holder sets up in advance is what holds. There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Microsoft account. While the account holder is alive, Microsoft allows authorized users.
How to protect your Microsoft accounts
- •Outlook.com mail and OneDrive files
- •The Microsoft 365 subscription
- •The Xbox gamertag and digital library, and Microsoft Store purchases
- •Any unspent account balance and any Microsoft Rewards points
- •Windows device licenses
Naming who acts after a death
- Designation
Microsoft offers no legacy contact or inactive-account manager, so there is no way to name in advance who acts on the account after a death.1
What Microsoft Corporation's terms say about sharing and transfers4
- Family plans and household sharing
Microsoft 365 Family and Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers can share subscription benefits with up to five other people in their family group, and each person keeps a fully separate Microsoft account.2
Sharing gives no member access to another member's email, files or account settings and is not a succession mechanism. Extended storage and AI features such as Copilot are available only to the subscription owner and cannot be shared.2
- Transferring the account or registration
The Microsoft account and its credentials cannot be transferred to another user or entity.3
- Transfers to another member
The Microsoft account balance is non-transferable to another person or Microsoft account, and is not redeemable for cash except as required by applicable law.4
Microsoft Rewards points cannot be transferred to any other person or entity, have no cash value, and cannot be exchanged for cash or money.3
- Exporting and backing up data
The Microsoft Services Agreement states "You should have a regular backup plan as Microsoft won't be able to retrieve Your Content or Data once your account is closed."3
Sources4
- 1.Accessing Outlook.com, OneDrive and other Microsoft services when someone has died
- 2.Share your Microsoft 365 subscription
- 3.Microsoft Services Agreement, Published July 30, 2025; effective September 30, 2025
- 4.Microsoft gift cards terms and conditions
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).
Sources
Data sourced from Microsoft Corporation primary sources (8 pages reviewed). How we research.
Microsoft customer support
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