Your Digital Legacy File
What this does: answer the questions below, choose a passphrase, and this page creates a single encrypted file for your family to open if you die or become unable to manage your affairs. Everything happens on your computer — nothing is sent anywhere.
Start small. The first three sections alone make this file worth having. Open the rest only as they apply to you — you can always come back and add more later.
Golden rule: record where things are and who to call — never passwords, PINs or card numbers.
About you
The basics your family will need for paperwork, including registering a death.
What matters most
If your family reads nothing else, they'll read this. Five to ten short lines: what should happen first, and the things they mustn't miss.
People to contact
Executor, attorney under a Lasting Power of Attorney, solicitor, accountant, next of kin, the friend who's good with computers — anyone who needs to know or can help.
Money & things of value
open when ready
Enough for your executor to discover everything — not balances. Bank and savings accounts, Premium Bonds and NS&I, investments and shares, pensions, property, vehicles, valuables, cryptocurrency, money owed to you.
Debts, bills & subscriptions
open when ready
Mortgage, loans, credit cards, council tax, energy and water, broadband and mobile, streaming, charity donations, storage units, memberships, anything leased or rented. Saying what should happen to each one makes this genuinely useful.
Insurance & policies
open when ready
Life insurance, funeral plans, home, car, private health cover. Unclaimed life policies are one of the most common — and costly — things families miss.
Home & important documents
open when ready
Will, deeds, passport, certificates, keys and spare keys, the safe, the alarm, the boiler service contract, landlord or managing agent. For someone looking after an empty house, this section is often the most useful of all.
Phone, email & online accounts
open when ready
Your phone may be the key to email, photos and account recovery. Make sure you have a safe plan for how your trusted person could access what matters if you were no longer able to help them.
Not the passwords themselves — where the password manager emergency kit, recovery codes or notebook live.
Email, photos, social media, cloud storage, websites and domains, the laptop. Say what you'd like done: keep and give to someone, close, memorialise, delete.
People, pets & responsibilities
open when ready
Anyone or anything that depends on you day to day: children or other dependants, pets, a neighbour you shop for, plants, routines and medication.
Work or business
only if you run one
If you're self-employed or run a business, this section can save your family months of untangling. Business bank and accountant, customers who need contacting, outstanding invoices, websites and domains, hosting, business email — and who should take over or wind things down.
Wishes & anything else
open when ready
Lock the file
Choose a passphrase. Your family will need it to open the file — it cannot be recovered if lost, so decide now where it will live.
Shown unencrypted on the file's opening screen, so don't put the passphrase itself here. Good options: a sealed envelope stored with your will, your executor, or split between two people.
Create your legacy file
Prefer paper? You can print an optional copy — convenient, but not encrypted, so store it somewhere appropriately secure, such as with your will. The encrypted file stays the master copy, and the printed page carries today's date so nobody relies on a stale one.