What an executor can and can’t do

An executor has authority over your estate. That is not the same as permission to open your accounts.

Under US federal and state law — the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, or RUFADAA — providers are generally barred from disclosing the contents of someone’s communications without specific authorisation. Naming a person in a will does not, on its own, provide it.

We’re not attorneys, and this isn’t legal advice. If it matters to you, it is worth an hour with one.

The tools the platforms do provide

Several of the large providers offer their own process, set up in advance by the account holder:

• Apple’s Digital Legacy
• Google’s Inactive Account Manager
• Meta’s memorialisation settings

Each is configured inside the account itself, and each is easy to forget you set up.

Where a written record helps

None of the above tells anyone what exists in the first place. That part isn’t legal or technical — it’s just a list, and only you can write it.

Which accounts matter. Which ones you don’t have. Who to call. What you’d want done. That record is the thing that makes every other step possible, and it is the one thing nobody can reconstruct for you.