Planning ahead for your YouTube accounts

Steps you can take now to control who receives Google LLC accounts

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Verified Jul 2026

Google LLC does not guarantee transfer of accounts after death. Lifetime planning provides options for managing accounts and controlling who has access to them.

How to protect your YouTube accounts

7 lifetime planning steps for your YouTube accounts:

1
Set up your YouTube channel under a Brand Account and add a trusted person as an owner. This is the single most important step. Brand Account owners retain full access to the channel without needing Google's deceased user process. Go to the Brand Accounts section of your Google Account, select the account, click Manage permissions, then Invite new users. Note: YouTube now recommends the channel permissions system for delegating access, but channel permissions explicitly "can't transfer ownership to other users" -- Brand Account roles remain the only path for ownership succession.
2
Configure Google's Inactive Account Manager. Set an inactivity timeout, designate up to 10 trusted contacts, choose which data to share with each contact (including YouTube), and optionally set the account to auto-delete after the timeout. This is effectively a beneficiary-designation tool for your Google digital assets.
3
Ensure your AdSense payout method is linked to a bank account your executor can access. AdSense continues paying automatically after death. If the bank account is closed, payments fail and Google holds the funds until they are claimed by a rightful heir or escheated to the state.
4
Keep your Google account active. Sign in at least once every 2 years to prevent automatic deletion under Google's inactive account policy. Google has stated it does "not have plans to delete accounts with YouTube videos at this time," but this exception is policy, not contract, and could change.
5
Continue uploading or posting on your channel at least every 6 months to preserve monetization eligibility. YouTube reserves the right to remove monetization from channels not uploading or posting for 6 months or more.
6
Back up your YouTube videos locally using YouTube Studio's download feature. If the Google account is eventually deleted (through account closure during estate processing or future policy changes around inactivity), uploaded videos cannot be recovered.
7
For significant AdSense revenue: consider whether YouTube channel earnings constitute an ongoing income stream that should be specifically addressed in your estate plan, including who is authorized as the rightful heir for AdSense claim purposes.

Family sharing

YouTube channels on personal Google accounts cannot be transferred. However, channels linked to Brand Accounts can have multiple owners and managers. An owner can add others by going to the Brand Accounts section of their Google Account, selecting the account, choosing "Manage permissions," then "Invite new users." Each Brand Account must have one primary owner. To become primary owner, a user must be an owner for at least 7 days, then on the Brand Account permissions page click the down arrow next to their name, select "Primary owner," then "Transfer." Channel ownership can effectively be transferred by adding a new owner and the original owner removing themselves. This is the key estate planning mechanism: if a creator sets up their channel under a Brand Account and adds a trusted person as an owner before death, that person retains full access without needing Google's deceased user process. YouTube's newer [channel permissions system](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9481328) explicitly "can't transfer ownership to other users" -- only Brand Account roles enable true ownership succession, even though [channel permissions are now the recommended day-to-day delegation model](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9367690). Separately, Google's [Inactive Account Manager](https://myaccount.google.com/inactive) allows pre-configuring up to 10 trusted contacts to receive YouTube data (exports, not account access) after a configurable inactivity timeout.

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).

An inventory listing the YouTube account lets a fiduciary identify it and act on it through the operator's official channels.

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Sources

Data sourced from Google LLC primary sources (13 pages reviewed). How we research.