What happens to Notion accounts when the owner dies
Contact Notion Labs, Inc. to request a transfer of accounts after an account holder dies
Notion Support
No published timeline for estate requests. Dormancy policy: free accounts inactive for 5 years are identified as dormant, then deleted 30 days after notification if no activity occurs in that window. After account deletion, Notion states it can restore a snapshot of content from the past 30 days if needed (contact support@notion.so). Trash retention defaults to 30 days before permanent deletion (Enterprise plans can customize retention between one day and 10 years). Enterprise deprovisioned-user content transfer must happen within 30 days of the user leaving the workspace. Large workspace exports can take up to 30 hours to process, and the resulting download links expire after 7 days.
(General customer service)
Notion has no publicly documented bereavement, estate, or deceased account process. There is no dedicated form, support path, or help center article addressing this scenario. Families must contact Notion support directly (the help center publishes support@notion.so as the data-recovery contact and offers a chat widget at notion.com/help). Dormancy risk: Notion defines a dormant account as a free user account inactive for five (5) years (no logins and no content edits). Once identified as dormant, Notion sends an email notification stating that the account and any dormant workspace will be terminated and deleted in 30 days unless activity occurs in that window. If the 30-day grace period lapses without activity, the account and all associated workspaces are permanently deleted. A workspace is deemed dormant if all of the owners of the workspace have dormant user accounts. The dormancy policy does not apply to accounts managed by an organization, accounts associated with a paid workspace (Enterprise, Business, Student, or Plus), or owners of a multi-user workspace. For Enterprise plans only, workspace owners can transfer a recently deprovisioned user's private content to another current member using the Content Transfer feature (or the Content Transfer API) - but only within 30 days of the user leaving the workspace, and only on Enterprise.
How to request a transfer
To request a transfer of Notion accounts after an account holder's death, follow these steps:
- •Death certificate of the account holder
- •Proof of legal authority (letters testamentary, court order, or power of attorney)
- •Government-issued photo ID of the requestor
- •Account email address and workspace URL(s)
- •Promote a trusted person to Workspace Owner via Settings > People > Members (change their role dropdown to "Workspace owner").
- •Move critical pages out of the deceased's private section into shared teamspaces so other members can access them.
- •Update billing (payment method, billing email) to the new owner if the workspace is on a paid plan.
- •Page-level export (PDF, HTML, Markdown & CSV) is available on all plans via Share > Export.
- •Workspace-level export (exports all pages and databases at once) is restricted to Business and Enterprise plans via Settings > Workspace > General.
- •Notion emails a download link when the export is ready; large workspaces can take up to 30 hours to process.
- •Database relations export as plain text URLs, rollups and formulas are lost, database views (filters, sorts, board/calendar/timeline layouts) are not preserved, and synced blocks lose their sync.
Required Documents
- Death certificate
- Proof of legal authority (letters testamentary, court order, or power of attorney)
- Government-issued photo ID of the requestor
- Account email address and workspace URL(s)
Timeline
No published timeline for estate requests. Dormancy policy: free accounts inactive for 5 years are identified as dormant, then deleted 30 days after notification if no activity occurs in that window. After account deletion, Notion states it can restore a snapshot of content from the past 30 days if needed (contact support@notion.so). Trash retention defaults to 30 days before permanent deletion (Enterprise plans can customize retention between one day and 10 years). Enterprise deprovisioned-user content transfer must happen within 30 days of the user leaving the workspace. Large workspace exports can take up to 30 hours to process, and the resulting download links expire after 7 days.
Frequently asked questions
No. Notion has no publicly documented bereavement or estate process - no dedicated form, support category, phone line, or help center article. Families must contact Notion support directly (support@notion.so is the address Notion publishes for post-deletion content recovery; the chat widget at notion.com/help routes general inquiries) and explain the situation. Outcomes are handled case-by-case.
Notion defines a dormant account as a free user account inactive for five (5) years (no logins and no content edits). Once identified as dormant, Notion emails the account owner stating the account and its workspaces will be terminated in 30 days unless activity occurs in that window. A workspace is deemed dormant if all of its owners have dormant user accounts. The dormancy policy does not apply to accounts managed by an organization, accounts associated with a paid workspace (Enterprise, Business, Student, or Plus), or owners of a multi-user workspace.
Only on Enterprise plans. Enterprise workspace owners can transfer a deprovisioned user's private content to another current member via Settings > Members > "Recently left" tab, or programmatically via the Content Transfer API. The transfer must happen within 30 days of deprovisioning. On Free, Plus, and Business plans there is no admin-level content transfer mechanism for private pages - they become inaccessible when the user is removed.
Notion Sites are hosted on Notion's infrastructure and go offline immediately when the workspace is deleted. There is no standalone export of a Notion Site with its published styling, custom domain, or SEO settings. The underlying pages can be exported as HTML or PDF, but these are flat exports without the published site's layout or theming.
Notion states it keeps backups that allow it to restore a snapshot of content from the past 30 days if needed - contact support@notion.so inside that window. After 30 days, data is unrecoverable. Separately, pages in Trash are retained for 30 days by default before permanent deletion; Enterprise plans can customize Trash retention up to 10 years.
Integrations set up by the deceased continue to work as long as the workspace exists and the integration's bot user has not been removed. If the workspace is deleted (via dormancy, manual deletion, or account closure), all API tokens tied to that workspace become invalid and integrations cease to function. Executors should document which external systems rely on Notion integrations before any deletion.
After the transfer is complete, the recipient can use the accounts according to the program's standard terms. Document the deceased account holder's details to make this process easier for your executor or family.
Sources
Data sourced from Notion Labs, Inc. primary sources (10 pages reviewed). How we research.
Notion Support
No published timeline for estate requests. Dormancy policy: free accounts inactive for 5 years are identified as dormant, then deleted 30 days after notification if no activity occurs in that window. After account deletion, Notion states it can restore a snapshot of content from the past 30 days if needed (contact support@notion.so). Trash retention defaults to 30 days before permanent deletion (Enterprise plans can customize retention between one day and 10 years). Enterprise deprovisioned-user content transfer must happen within 30 days of the user leaving the workspace. Large workspace exports can take up to 30 hours to process, and the resulting download links expire after 7 days.
(General customer service)
