Digital Assets in Your Will: What Passes On and What Dies With You

What counts as a digital asset?

Anything of value you hold in digital form: files, cryptocurrency, online accounts, email, social media, and domain names. The legal question deciding everything else is which of them you actually own.

The value is not always financial. A photo library is often the asset families care most about losing, while a domain name or an online store can carry real commercial worth. Money held in online-only banks and payment accounts is simply money, and forms part of your estate like any other account. The starting point when writing your will is a list of what exists, with instructions on where it is held, because your executors cannot manage the distribution of accounts they never learn about. Ownership, not sentiment, decides the allocation, and gov.uk’s will guidance treats digital property like any other.

Which digital assets can you actually leave in a will?

Assets you own outright pass under your will: cryptocurrency, money in accounts, domain names, and files you created yourself. Licensed content does not, however much you paid for it over the years.

The awkward category is media collections. Music, ebooks, and films bought through the big platforms are almost always licences to you personally, ending at death, so a decade of purchases cannot be gifted on. Cryptocurrency sits at the other extreme: it is fully yours, but in practice it only passes if someone can reach the keys, since no company exists to reset access. Loyalty points and air miles sit in between, governed by each scheme’s terms, with some transferable on death and many not.

Should you put passwords in your will?

No, never. A will becomes a public document once probate is granted, so anything written in it can be read by anyone at all. Access details belong in a separate, secure document your executors can find.

The working pattern is an asset inventory: a list of accounts and where they are held, without passwords, kept alongside your stored will and refreshed when things change. Actual credentials belong in a password manager with an emergency-access feature, or a sealed document held securely, with your executors told where it is. That separation gives your beneficiaries protection and keeps security planning where it belongs, since encryption on a good password manager does the guarding for you. For cryptocurrency, that separation is the whole game, since keys in the will are published to the world and keys nowhere are lost forever.

How do the big platforms handle death?

Apple’s Legacy Contact and Google’s Inactive Account Manager let you nominate exactly who can access your data after death. Both take minutes to set up, and without them executors face each company’s bereavement process.

The platform tools are worth setting up precisely because they bypass the slowest path: proving authority to a company’s support process, with outcomes that vary by platform and by what their terms allow. Social media accounts can typically be memorialised or closed by family on proof of death. For everything else, executors work through providers one by one with the death certificate and grant of probate. A good inventory saves months here, as gov.uk’s guidance on wills and estates frames the executor’s management role.

Frequently asked questions

How do you deal with digital assets in a will?

Leave the assets you own through the will like any other property, and handle access separately. Keep an inventory of accounts with the will, credentials in a password manager, and the platforms’ legacy tools set up. The will directs who benefits, and the inventory makes it possible.

What is a digital asset in a will?

Anything of value you hold digitally: cryptocurrency, online account balances, domain names, websites, photo and file libraries, email, and social media. Legally the important split is between assets you own, which pass under your will, and content you merely licence, which generally ends at your death.

What assets do not pass through a will?

Licensed digital content, music, ebooks, and film libraries, generally dies with you. Outside the digital world, jointly owned property passing by survivorship and pension death benefits paid under nominations also sit outside the will, which is why a will covers less than many people assume.

What happens to cryptocurrency when someone dies?

It forms part of the estate and passes under the will, but only if the executors can reach the private keys or the exchange account. Unreachable keys mean the asset is lost permanently, which is why secure key arrangements made during life matter more than the will’s wording.