Your phone holds more than photos and messages. It’s where your security codes arrive, where your important emails land, and where the contacts your family would need are kept. A Will and a trusted person matter. But to settle your estate, your family will also need what lives on your phone and in your online accounts. Here’s what they’ll run into and how to get ahead of it.
Get your free, printable Digital Readiness Guide
The Digital Readiness Guide walks you through the exact steps to get your phone, your email and your online accounts ready, and shows your family what to do when the time comes.
First, your phone itself
Imagine your child or partner at your kitchen table, holding your phone, trying to find an insurance email. They know it’s there, but the phone is locked and they don’t know your passcode.
Only you can pass on your passcode. Without it, the only way into an iPhone or Android phone is to erase it, and anything that wasn’t backed up is lost.
What you can do: You don’t need to hand over your passcodes today. But your executor and Power of Attorney need to know where to find them if they ever need to step in. The guide shows what to record, and what to set up on your phone.
Next, think about your email
Your email is the gateway to much of your digital life. Password resets, insurance renewals, pension statements and account notices all arrive there. Being named executor or Power of Attorney doesn’t guarantee access to someone’s online accounts, so if your family can’t get into your email, settling your affairs gets significantly harder.
What you can do: Google and Apple let you choose, in advance, who can get into your email after you die. Outlook email has no setting like this, so if you use Outlook, your written-down login is your family’s only reliable way in. The guide shows you how to set this up with Google and Apple, and what to record if you use Outlook or an internet-provider email.
Is your email tied to your internet bill?
If your email address came with your Rogers, Bell, TELUS or Shaw internet, it belongs to that internet account, not to you. If that internet account is ever cancelled, including by family settling bills after a death, the address can stop working, and the password-reset links in it are lost with it.
What you can do: If your email ends in rogers.com, bell.net, telus.net or shaw.ca, make sure the people who would step in know it’s tied to your internet account, so it stays open until they’ve saved what they need. The guide’s Day One page shows your family what to keep running after a death, and what to do first.
What about your photos and other digital memories?
Having the device doesn’t mean your family can reach the accounts where your photos are stored. Apple, Google, Facebook and Instagram all let you name someone in advance. Without that setting, access isn’t guaranteed, and Apple and Google may require a court order. Facebook and Instagram memorialize the account once someone reports the death, and no one can log in or make changes. Only a legacy contact you named in advance can download your photos, and only if you allowed it.
What you can do: Check that your photos back up to the cloud, then name someone on each account that lets you. The guide shows where each setting is.
Your Digital Readiness Guide: Everything You Need, Step by Step
Getting your digital life ready can feel overwhelming. Every company does it differently, and the settings move. The free Digital Readiness Guide walks you through it step by step: the exact settings for Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, checked against each company’s help pages in October 2026; a Digital Estate Record that shows what to record and who needs to know; and a Day One page that tells your family what to do first. Work through it at your own pace.
Download the free Digital Readiness Guide →
Keep Everything in One Place with Estate Kit
Estate Kit keeps your passcodes, accounts and instructions in one secure place alongside your Will, with six-month check-ins to keep them up to date. You decide who can access what, and when. The people you’ve named get their own step-by-step roadmap organized around what matters first. Leave your family clarity, not chaos.
Try Estate Kit free for seven days, no credit card required, at estatekit.com/carp. CARP members save 20% when they continue.
