Ask HN: How do you manage your digital legacy for after you die?

Password manager is the right first step. A few others worth adding:

  - A "death folder" document (encrypted, in the password manager) listing every
    account, what's in it, and what to do with it. Google/Apple both have inactive
    account managers built in — most people don't know they exist.

  - For photos: make sure at least one copy lives somewhere your wife already has
    independent access to, not just through your credentials.

  - For things that matter: write it down in plain language. Not just passwords —
    context. Why you kept something, what it means.

  On the AI side: I've been thinking about this in the context of agent memory
  persistence (building Cathedral — a memory layer for AI agents). The same problem
  exists: identity and context that only lives in one place, not transferable.
  Structured memory exports are something we're working toward for exactly this reason.

I am going to say the opposite. There are two classes of digital information for me.

1. What my wife cares about: mostly financial. My wife is a joint account holder on everything she can be. Thats everything but retirement accounts. She is the beneficiary on those. I send her statements for those every year and we have a shared spreadsheet.

On the other hand, I think people overestimate how much people will care about your pictures. It’s like no one wants to see your vacation photos. For the ones that she does care about, we just share them.

I set up a Dead Man's Switch. It sends me an email with a link every day. If I click it, I acknowledge that I am alive and nothing happens. If I do not, after a grace period and more reminders, it sends an email to my wife with a password-protected file. I have listed all our accounts, passwords, assets, etc., along with instructions on what to do and whom to ask for help.

Disclaimer: I sell digital legacy products. However, I also honestly use them, and some of these tools I distribute for free and have made open-source.

Best strategy is to minimise your digital footprint. There are non-negotiable things like: bank accounts, mortgages and the like. Internet accounts, books, pics, videos are all expendable

Interesting, but every single day? That’s nuts. What if, for some reason, you didn't have internet access for a few days?

You better watch out for is 2FA, sometimes even with passwords people still get locked out, so backup codes can help.

I heard someone talking about the Dead Hand system that lowkey sounds as interesting as hell gonna try it out

I want to know too, mine is using pure iCloud

hard disk from the 90s

delete all