What happens to your passwords when you die?

Locked out by design

Online services are built to keep everyone but you out. When a family member can't sign in, most platforms will not simply hand over a password — terms of service usually end your rights to an account at death, and in many countries signing in to someone else's account, even a late relative's, sits in legal grey territory.

Some providers offer a formal process: a death certificate, proof of authority, weeks or months of waiting — often ending with the account closed rather than opened. Add two-factor authentication and a locked phone, and even a cooperative provider may be unable to help. Families lose photo libraries, miss bills, and watch subscriptions quietly drain an account nobody can reach.

Why the usual workarounds fail

• A note in a drawer

  Paper lists go stale the first time you change a password, anyone who finds the note can use it, and you'll never know who has seen it.

• Sharing passwords now

  Handing over passwords while you're alive trades away your privacy today for a need that may be decades away — and every password change breaks the copy you shared.

• A password manager alone

  Emergency access features are genuinely useful, but they only cover what's in the vault — and your family still needs to know the manager exists, who was granted access, and which of hundreds of entries actually matter.

• Putting passwords in your will

  A will is the wrong place for secrets: in many places it becomes a public document during probate, it's slow to update, and it may be read months after your accounts needed attention.

The handful of passwords that actually matter

Your family doesn't need every password you have. A few accounts unlock nearly everything else: your main email account, because password resets for every other service arrive there; your phone's unlock code, because verification codes arrive there; your password manager's master password, if you use one; and direct access to banking or anything else that holds money.

Just as important is context. A password without instructions still leaves your family guessing: which accounts to close, which bills are on autopay, where two-factor backup codes live, and what should simply be deleted unread. A short note next to each credential is often worth more than the credential itself.

Leave access behind — without sharing it today

This is the real problem: your passwords must stay completely private while you're alive, yet reach the right person reliably when you're gone. A dead man's switch resolves exactly that tension. You store credentials in an encrypted message box, confirm you're okay with periodic check-ins, and the box is released only if you stop responding.

In PostMortem, each box holds passwords alongside a notes field for recovery codes, security questions, and instructions. Everything is encrypted on your device before it is uploaded, so no one — including PostMortem — can read it. When a password changes, you update the box in seconds, and until the day it's released your recipients see nothing at all.