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Checklist · Printable

The digital legacy checklist

Nine sections covering what your family would need to find. Print it, work down it, and tick what already exists.

Nothing here asks you to write down a password on paper. The point of the checklist is the inventory — knowing what exists and where. Where the secrets themselves live is a separate decision, covered in digital estate planning.

1. Access — start here

• Device passcodes for your phone, tablet and computer
• Your primary email account — the one that can reset everything else
• How two-factor authentication is set up, and on which device
• Whether a recovery key or backup codes exist, and where
• Any platform legacy tool you have configured (Apple Legacy Contact, Google Inactive Account Manager, Facebook memorialisation)

2. Money

• Current and savings accounts — institution names
• Brokerage, ISA, pension and retirement accounts
• Premium bonds, certificates, or anything held in paper form
• Old workplace pensions or share schemes you no longer think about
• Loans, credit cards, overdrafts and any personal guarantees
• Your accountant or financial adviser, with contact details

3. Property and possessions

• Property deeds — where filed, and with whom
• Mortgage lender and account reference
• Vehicle documents and registration
• Storage units, safety deposit boxes and where the keys are
• Items of unusual value, and any valuation or provenance paperwork

4. Insurance

• Life insurance — insurer, policy number, and who the named beneficiary is
• Home and contents
• Health, critical illness or income protection
• Any policy attached to a mortgage or an employer
• Renewal dates, so a policy does not lapse unnoticed

5. Crypto and digital assets

• Which coins exist and roughly how much
• Hardware wallets — model, and where the device physically is
• Whether a passphrase (25th word) is in use
• Exchange accounts and the email addresses they use
• Where seed phrase backups are stored
• A person who could help your heirs without exploiting them

6. Documents

• Will — where the signed original is held, not just a copy
• Power of attorney or equivalent
• Birth, marriage and citizenship certificates
• Passports and national identity documents
• Tax records for the last several years
• Business incorporation papers, shareholder agreements

7. Ongoing obligations

• Direct debits and standing orders
• Subscriptions that renew annually and are easy to forget
• Domain names and hosting, especially if a business depends on them
• Professional memberships or licences

8. People to contact

• Solicitor or attorney
• Accountant
• Executor — and whether they know they are the executor
• Employer or business partners
• Anyone who holds a key, a spare, or a share of a secret

9. Instructions and wishes

• What you would like to happen to photographs and personal files
• Accounts to close, memorialise, or leave alone
• Anything you would want said, or not said
• Funeral preferences, if you have them and they are not recorded elsewhere
• A short note to whoever opens this first — it helps more than people expect

Once the list exists

1. Decide where it lives. It contains a map of your life, so it needs at least as much protection as the things it points to.
2. Make sure someone can eventually open it. A perfectly protected record nobody can reach has failed.
3. Tell the right person it exists. Not necessarily how to open it. Just that it is there.
4. Review it once a year. Attach it to a date you already remember.