Summer is short, probate is long. Add a Legacy Contact to Your Phone

School is out, suitcases are open, and the lake calendar is filling up. Before you load the car this weekend, take five minutes to do one quiet thing on your phone. It could save your family thousands of dollars and months of grief: designate a legacy contact for your Apple ID and Google account.

Your Phone Is the Master Key

A modern phone is more than a phone. It is a wallet, a photo album, a bank, a doctor's office, and a password vault all in one. When the owner dies, all of it goes dark. Apple, Google, and the carriers will not "just unlock" a device or account for a grieving spouse or adult child. Federal privacy law (the Stored Communications Act) and each company's own policy require either a written designation by the account holder or a court order naming a personal representative.

Here is what is sitting behind the lock screen for most people:

•  Family photos and videos that exist nowhere else.

•  Two-factor authentication codes — often the only way into bank, brokerage, and retirement accounts.

•  Email, contacts, calendar, and text history.

•  Banking, investment, and crypto-wallet apps.

•  Password managers (the master key to everything else).

•  Subscriptions still charging the credit card on file.

•  Health data, prescriptions, and provider portals.

What Is a Legacy Contact?

A legacy contact is a person you choose, in advance, to access your account data after you die. Apple and Google both let you set this up directly in your phone's settings. The companies will release your data to that person when they show two things: the access key you set up, and a copy of your death certificate.

How to Set It Up — Step by Step

Note for Samsung Galaxy users: Samsung does not have its own legacy-contact feature. Set up Google's Inactive Account Manager above, and check Samsung Account → Privacy for any data-deletion options you want to control.

Don't stop at your phone.

The phone is the most urgent device, but the same idea applies to your wider digital life. Spend an extra ten minutes on these:

Facebook — Settings → Personal Details → Manage Account → Legacy Contact. Or pre-set memorialization or deletion.

Instagram — No pre-designation. Family files a memorialization request with a death certificate.

Microsoft / Outlook — Microsoft uses a Next of Kin process; there is no equivalent legacy contact.

Password manager — 1Password, LastPass, Bitwarden, and Dashlane all support emergency access. Set this up — it is the master key to almost everything else.

Crypto wallets — Self-custody wallets only live in the seed phrase. Print it, store it in a fireproof safe, and reference it in your estate plan.

Put It in Writing, Too

Even with legacy contacts in place, your will or trust should include language consistent with the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), which most states have adopted. The language tells your fiduciary they have your permission to access digital accounts. Without it, providers can still refuse.

A simple digital-asset inventory — a one-page list of every account, the login method, and where to find recovery codes — should sit with your other estate-planning documents. Update it once a year and keep it somewhere your executor can actually find it.

Summer is short. Probate is long: Adding a legacy contact is the single highest-value, lowest-effort move on your estate-planning list. Do it before the next long weekend.

This post is general information for educational purposes and is not legal advice. Account features and laws may change. Talk to an estate-planning attorney about your situation.