How to memorialize a Facebook account

A short note before you start

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

What does it mean to memorialize a Facebook account?

Memorializing a Facebook account turns a deceased person's profile into a fixed tribute space instead of deleting it. Facebook adds the word "Remembering" next to the person's name, keeps existing posts and photos visible to the audience they were already shared with, and lets friends continue to post memories on the timeline². No one, including a legacy contact, can log into a memorialized account or send messages as that person, and once done for a genuine death, Facebook does not reverse it².

Memorialization differs from deleting the account. The same request form lets a family member ask Facebook to permanently remove the account instead, and a person can set their own preference in advance for which one happens¹.

How do you memorialize a Facebook account?

You memorialize a Facebook account by submitting Facebook's online memorialization request form with the profile's web address and proof of death. Anyone who believes an account holder has died can submit it, though Facebook may ask for more verification if you are not a close family member¹.

1. Go to the profile you want to memorialize and copy its web address (the URL at the top of the page).
2. Search the Facebook Help Center for "Memorialization Request" or go directly to Facebook's request form for memorializing or removing an account.
3. Select the option for memorializing the account, not the separate option for permanent removal.
4. Enter the profile's web address and your own email address.
5. Upload proof of death. Facebook's form accepts documentation such as an obituary, a news article, or a link to a memorial or funeral home notice¹.
6. Submit the form and watch your email for a follow-up request if Facebook needs more information.
7. Once approved, check the profile for the word "Remembering" next to the name to confirm the change went through.

If the account already has a legacy contact assigned, that person is automatically given the role once the account is memorialized².

How do I memorialize a Facebook account if I don't know the person's password?

You do not need the account password. The request form only needs the profile's public web address and proof that the person has died; Facebook staff make the change on their end¹. Never enter someone else's password into a form or website that claims to speed up a request. Omliva and Facebook both avoid asking for passwords for exactly this reason.

What is a legacy contact, and how is it different from memorializing?

A legacy contact is a role a Facebook user assigns in their own settings, before death, to someone they trust. Memorializing is the one-time event, usually requested by a family member after a death, that turns the profile into a tribute page. Once an account with a legacy contact is memorialized, that person gets the added abilities below; an account with no legacy contact can still be memorialized, but no one gets those extra abilities³.

What a legacy contact can do after the account is memorialized

• Write and pin one post at the top of the timeline, for example to share memorial service details⁸.
• Respond to new friend requests from family and friends who were not yet connected⁸.
• Update the profile picture and cover photo⁸.
• Download an archive of the photos, posts and profile information the person shared, only if the account owner turned that permission on when setting up the legacy contact⁵.

What a legacy contact cannot do

• Log into the account or post, comment or message as the person.
• Read the person's private messages.
• Remove or add friends, or change past posts, on the person's behalf.

How do I set myself up as someone's future legacy contact?

You cannot add yourself; only the account owner can choose a legacy contact, while they are alive and able to use their own account. If you are helping a parent plan ahead, walk them through it: in the Facebook app, Settings & privacy, then Settings, then Account Center's Personal details, then Account ownership and control, then Memorialization, and choose Legacy contact⁸. A person must be 18 or older to use the feature⁸. Note the choice in a family guide so no one has to guess later.

Does state law affect who controls a Facebook account after death?

Yes, but the platform's own tools generally come first. States regulate this through versions of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, a model law from the Uniform Law Commission that states can adopt in full, in part or not at all⁹. Under that model, a choice made through a platform's own online tool, such as a Facebook legacy contact designation, outranks instructions written later in a will. If the person never used the platform's tool, a will or power of attorney naming an executor with digital-asset authority comes next, and the platform's terms of service govern only when neither exists¹⁰. Because states vary in what they adopted, confirm an unusual situation, such as a contested account, with an attorney rather than assume one national rule applies.

Federal privacy law adds another layer: providers generally cannot hand over private message contents without the account owner's consent or a valid court order¹¹,⁶. A legacy contact, an executor, or even a court order does not automatically produce a login or a message inbox the way it might for a bank account.

Facebook's memorialization options at a glance

What should you record in a family guide?

A family guide is the place to write down the decisions that keep a memorialization request from stalling on missing information. Include:

• Whether the person set a legacy contact, and who it is.
• The person's preference: memorialize the account, or delete it.
• The profile's web address (the URL), saved somewhere the family can find it without logging in.
• Where an obituary or death notice will be published, since Facebook's form accepts a link to one as proof of death.
• A note that no password is needed, so no family member feels they must go looking for one.

Keep this alongside the rest of what your family needs to know and the fuller digital legacy checklist, in a family guide rather than scattered notes, so no one has to guess during a hard week. See Apple legacy contact and Google inactive account manager for how the other major platforms handle the same problem.

What mistakes do people commonly make?

• Trying to memorialize a business Facebook Page instead of a personal profile. Pages are not memorialized; ongoing access depends on who was already set up as a Page admin².
• Assuming a legacy contact can read old messages or log in. They cannot, by design.
• Waiting for a password. The request form never asks for one.
• Requesting memorialization for someone who is alive but incapacitated. Facebook's memorialization form is for deaths only; a separate Special Request form covers a medically incapacitated person and has its own requirements⁶.
• Choosing removal over memorialization without checking whether the person had stated a preference, since removal cannot be undone.
• Submitting a name on the obituary that does not match the profile name, which commonly triggers a request for more proof.

When to get professional help

Most memorialization requests are a form-filling task a family member can complete alone. Get a probate attorney involved when a family disagrees about memorializing versus deleting an account, when the goal is retrieving message content rather than memorializing, or when a business depends on a Facebook Page tied to the person's profile and admin access was never set up in advance.