How do Apple Legacy Contact and Google Inactive Account Manager work?

A short note before you start

This guide is general information for the United States, not legal, tax, financial or medical advice.

What is an Apple Legacy Contact?

A Legacy Contact is a person you name in your Apple Account settings who can request access to some of your Apple data after you die. Apple requires the contact to have two things: an access key that only you can generate for them, and a death certificate¹.

How to set up an Apple Legacy Contact

1. On an iPhone or iPad: Settings, your name, Sign-In & Security, Legacy Contact.
2. On a Mac: System Settings, your name, Sign-In & Security, Legacy Contact.
3. Choose someone from your Family Sharing group, or add anyone else by phone number or email.
4. Apple generates an access key as a QR code and a text string. Share it right away: send it through Messages (on iOS 15.2, iPadOS 15.2 or macOS Monterey 12.1 or later, a copy saves automatically to the contact's own Apple ID settings) or print the key and hand over the paper copy¹.
5. You can name more than one Legacy Contact, and any one of them can act independently, with no need to coordinate¹.
6. The minimum age to be added as a Legacy Contact is 13, though this varies by country or region¹.

What an Apple Legacy Contact can access

Once Apple approves a request, the Legacy Contact can see photos, messages, notes, files, device backups, calendars, contacts, call history, and app data stored in iCloud, "and more," according to Apple's own description¹. What they cannot see: movies, music, books or other purchased or licensed subscriptions, and anything held in iCloud Keychain, which is where Apple stores passwords, passkeys and payment card details¹. Some data may also be protected by encryption that Apple itself cannot unlock without more information, such as a device passcode³.

The access key and the three-year window

Without the access key, a family member can still request access, but Apple treats that as any other family request and generally requires a court order naming the requester as rightful inheritor in the US, or accepted alternative documents in a handful of other countries³. With the access key and a death certificate, the request instead goes through Apple's Digital Legacy website or directly on a device, and is faster.

Once approved, access lasts three years from the date of that first approved request, not three years from the death. After that window, Apple permanently deletes the account and everything in it². Treat the three years as a deadline to download anything worth keeping, not as long-term storage.

What is Google Inactive Account Manager?

Google's Inactive Account Manager is a setting a person turns on themselves, in advance, to decide what happens if their Google Account goes quiet for a set period. It works differently from Apple's: nothing requires a death certificate, and Google never confirms whether the person has died. It simply reacts to inactivity⁴.

How to set up Google Inactive Account Manager

1. Go to myaccount.google.com/inactive, or open your Google Account, select Data & Privacy, and scroll to the section on making a plan for your digital legacy.
2. Choose an inactivity period: 3, 6, 12 or 18 months. Google will try to reach you by text and email before the timer runs out, so the account is not mistakenly treated as abandoned⁴.
3. Confirm the phone number and recovery email Google should use to warn you first.
4. Add up to 10 trusted contacts. They do not need a Google Account; any email address works⁴.
5. For each contact, choose whether they are only notified, or also get a link to download specific data, such as Gmail, Drive, Photos or YouTube. Some data cannot be shared this way regardless of settings⁴.
6. Write the message each trusted contact will see, and point them toward your family guide rather than explaining everything in the message itself.
7. Optionally, tell Google to delete the account automatically after the inactivity period, instead of leaving it open.

What trusted contacts receive

Trusted contacts get nothing during setup or while the account stays active. Only after the chosen inactivity period passes do they get an email, and only if data sharing was turned on do they also get a private download link. That link and the data behind it are available for about three months after the account is marked inactive, after which the link expires⁴. Trusted contacts never receive the account password and never get to log in as the account holder.

If nothing is set up

Google reserves the right to delete an account that has been inactive across all of Google's services for at least two years, even without an Inactive Account Manager plan⁵. Accounts with active purchases, an app in Google Play with ongoing transactions, or a Family Link child account are treated differently, but the safest assumption for a family is that an untouched Google Account is not permanent storage.

Facebook, Instagram, Microsoft and password managers compared

Apple and Google are the accounts most people set up first, but the same idea, naming someone in advance, exists in several other places a family guide should track.

Instagram's memorialized profiles show the word "Remembering" next to the person's name, and posts stay visible to their original audience, but nobody, including the legacy contact, can log in⁹.

Password managers work differently from the others in this table. 1Password has no automatic trigger at all: its Emergency Kit is a PDF with the account's secret key and a blank line for the master password, meant to be printed and stored with other papers¹¹. Bitwarden has a built-in Emergency Access feature instead: you name a trusted contact, grant view or full takeover access, and set a wait time. If you do not respond to a request within that time, access opens automatically, though you can approve it sooner¹².

What to record in a family guide

None of these settings work if nobody else knows they exist. This is the kind of list a digital legacy checklist or a family guide, such as the one Omliva helps you build, is meant to hold, alongside the rest of what your family needs to know. For each account, record:

• Which accounts have a legacy contact, inactive account plan or emergency access feature turned on, and who was named
• Where the Apple access key is stored (the QR code or printed text, not the password)
• Which trusted contacts were chosen for Google, and what data categories were shared with each
• Whether Google contacts are set to notify only or to notify and share data, since the two look identical from the outside
• For Bitwarden, the wait time chosen and whether it is view or takeover access
• For 1Password, where the printed Emergency Kit is kept
• A note that Microsoft and most other services without a legacy feature will require a death certificate and, often, a court order, so the family should not expect quick access

When to get professional help

If an estate needs to access a Microsoft account or any account where the family lacks login information, an attorney can help prepare the subpoena or court order most providers require. A probate attorney can also confirm whether the state's version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act gives an executor any additional access rights beyond what the platform itself offers.