We live in a digital world – one where our most important memories, communications, and financial information often live behind a screen. From family photos stored in the cloud, to online bank accounts, investment apps, and even social media profiles, many of us now manage a significant part of our lives through digital platforms.
But when someone passes away, these digital assets can become a serious challenge for loved ones. Without access to important passwords or legal authority to manage online accounts, family members and trustees can find themselves locked out – unable to close accounts, retrieve important documents, or preserve meaningful content.
At Cookman Law, we’ve seen firsthand how emotionally and legally complicated it can be to handle digital accounts after a death. That’s why we’re committed to helping families plan ahead. In this post, we’ll walk through what counts as a digital asset, the legal landscape in California, the emotional side of digital legacies, and how to build digital planning into your estate plan. We’ll also share practical tips and show you how our Trust Maintenance Program makes this process easier, safer, and more secure.
What Are Digital Assets?
Digital assets are any accounts, files, or information that exist online or are stored electronically. While we often think of estate planning in terms of homes, bank accounts, and physical items, today’s estate plans must also account for what lives behind a password.
Digital assets generally fall into three categories:
1. Financial Assets
These include online bank accounts, investment and retirement platforms, cryptocurrency wallets, PayPal, Venmo, and other fintech tools that manage or hold funds. If you access an account or manage money through an app or website, it likely qualifies as a digital asset.
2. Personal Assets
These are the digital pieces of your life: email accounts, social media profiles (such as Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn), cloud storage (like Google Drive, Dropbox, or iCloud), digital photo libraries, and even streaming services or subscription accounts. While these may not always have monetary value, they often carry deep emotional significance.
3. Business Assets
If you own or help manage a business, you may have websites, domain names, online stores (like Etsy or Shopify), digital ad accounts, or client management tools. These digital properties are often tied to income and intellectual property, making them especially important to address in your estate plan.
Many digital assets hold both financial and emotional value. A photo archive stored in the cloud may be priceless to your family. A PayPal account with unclaimed funds, or a cryptocurrency wallet, could represent real dollars. Unfortunately, without proper access or authority, these assets can easily become lost, inaccessible, or even permanently deleted after death.
Why Digital Assets Are Often Overlooked in Estate Planning
Despite their growing importance, digital assets are often left out of traditional estate plans. While most people remember to plan for their home, bank accounts, or family heirlooms, it’s easy to overlook the dozens (or even hundreds) of online accounts we use every day.
One major reason? Access. Even if a trustee or executor is legally named in your estate plan, they may not be able to get into your online accounts without the proper logins. Many accounts are protected by passwords, two-factor authentication, and strict privacy settings. That can leave families locked out of vital financial tools or unable to retrieve irreplaceable digital memories.
Adding to the complexity, federal and state privacy laws, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Stored Communications Act, restrict unauthorized access to digital accounts, even by well-meaning family members. In California, as in most states, accessing someone else’s accounts without legal permission can create legal risk, even if you’re trying to handle their affairs after death.
This combination of technical barriers and legal restrictions means that, without careful planning, digital assets can easily be lost or inaccessible. Fortunately, California has adopted laws that allow for better digital estate planning, but it’s up to you to take that extra step in your plan.
Legal Considerations: Who Can Access What?
In California, handling digital assets isn’t just a matter of knowing the right password; it’s also a matter of legal authority. Without the proper documents in place, even your closest loved ones may be blocked from accessing your digital life after death or incapacity.
California follows the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), a law that allows trustees, executors, agents, and conservators to access digital assets, but only if they have been specifically granted permission to do so. In other words, if your estate plan doesn’t mention digital assets, your fiduciaries may not have the legal right to manage them.
To ensure your digital assets can be properly accessed and administered, it’s important to:
1. Name a Digital Executor or Authorize Access
While California law doesn’t use the term “digital executor” formally, you can grant someone authority to manage your digital assets through your estate planning documents. This can be your trustee, executor, or power of attorney agent, but only if the document explicitly gives them that power.
2. Include Digital Asset Language in Your Legal Documents
We recommend adding specific digital asset provisions to your:
- Revocable living trust
- Will
- Durable power of attorney
- Memo of Intent
These provisions should authorize your chosen person to access, manage, or close digital accounts, and may refer to a separate digital inventory stored securely (more on that later).
3. Understand the Gap Between Legal Authority and Practical Access
Even with proper legal authority, your trustee may still need usernames, passwords, and two-factor authentication codes to actually access accounts. Many companies (like Apple or Google) won’t provide access without a court order unless you’ve set up internal legacy tools or shared credentials securely in advance.
That’s why we encourage both legal planning and practical preparation – a combination that ensures your digital assets are protected, accessible, and handled according to your wishes. In fact, our Trust Maintenance Program includes access to a digital vault that will allow you to store these assets securely and give access to those who will need it.
The Emotional Side: The Digital Footprint We Leave Behind
For many families, digital assets hold far more than financial value. They also hold memories, connection, and legacy.
Social media profiles, email accounts, digital journals, photo libraries, and even old text messages can become precious touchstones after a loved one passes. At the same time, these digital footprints can also bring pain or confusion if families are unsure what to do with them – or if they can’t access them at all.
We’ve worked with clients who were devastated to discover they couldn’t recover years of family photos stored in a loved one’s cloud account. Others have struggled with whether to memorialize, delete, or simply leave social media profiles untouched. In some cases, unfinished blog posts, creative projects, or final email exchanges have taken on unexpected emotional weight.
That’s why communicating your digital wishes ahead of time is such an important part of modern estate planning. Consider:
- Whether you want your Facebook or Instagram account memorialized or deleted
- Who should have access to your email or digital journals
- What should happen to your photo albums, home videos, or digital notes
- Whether you want loved ones to continue managing your website, blog, or online presence
By sharing these wishes clearly, both in your legal documents and in personal conversations, you give your family the ability to make thoughtful choices during a deeply emotional time. You also give them the gift of clarity and connection, rather than confusion and regret.
Practical Tips for Managing Digital Assets
Planning for your digital assets doesn’t have to be overwhelming, but it does require intention. With a few thoughtful steps, you can make things significantly easier for your family, trustee, or executor.
Here’s how to get started:
1. Create a Digital Inventory
Start by making a list of your digital accounts, including:
- Financial accounts (online banking, investment platforms, crypto wallets)
- Email accounts
- Social media platforms
- Cloud storage and photo libraries
- Business tools or websites
- Subscription services (Amazon, Netflix, etc.)
Include usernames, email logins, and a general description of what each account contains or is used for. You don’t need to share your passwords here, but you’ll want a secure way to store and communicate them.
2. Use a Secure Password Manager
At our firm, we use LastPass to keep all of our passwords, and be able to share passwords between team members. Then you only need to keep track of one “master password” and you can access all the other ones.
3. Use an Online Vault
We recommend storing your digital inventory and account credentials in a secure, encrypted vault that trusted people can access when the time comes. This is where our Trust Maintenance Program becomes incredibly helpful.
As part of the program, we offer access to a private online vault – a secure tool that allows you to safely store and share digital asset information, legal documents, and access credentials with your chosen agents or trustees. It’s built to grow with your plan and gives peace of mind that your information is both protected and available when needed.
3. Clarify What You Want Shared, Saved, or Deleted
Once you’ve built your inventory, take time to think about what you want done with each asset:
- Should certain emails or messages be kept private, or passed on?
- Do you want your social media accounts memorialized, managed, or removed?
- Are there digital files or creative projects you want preserved?
- Is there anything you’d prefer to have deleted?
This may seem like a small detail, but it can spare your loved ones from having to guess or make difficult decisions later.
4. Keep It Updated
Your digital life will continue to evolve. Accounts change, passwords get reset, and new platforms appear. Make it a habit to review and update your digital asset plan regularly, just as you would with your estate planning documents.
Your estate plan is only as strong as it is current, and that includes the digital side.
Planning Ahead: How to Include Digital Assets in Your Estate Plan
The best way to ensure your digital assets are handled according to your wishes is to intentionally build them into your estate plan. In California, that means working with an estate planning attorney who understands both the legal and practical aspects of digital legacy planning.
At Cookman Law, we help clients integrate digital access into all the core components of their estate plans, including:
Revocable Living Trust
Your trust can include provisions granting your successor trustee authority to access and manage your digital assets. It can also reference a secure digital inventory stored separately (such as in our online vault) so you don’t have to update the trust every time you change a password.
Will
If you have accounts that aren’t part of your trust or if you’re appointing a different person as your executor, your will should include similar digital asset language. This ensures that your executor can access necessary information to close accounts or distribute digital property.
Durable Power of Attorney
This document is critical if you become incapacitated during your lifetime. Be sure it authorizes your agent to manage digital assets, not just financial or real property. Without this, they may be blocked from accessing key accounts you rely on day to day.
Advance Health Care Directive
While not directly tied to digital assets, your advance directive can reference your preferences for medical portals, online health records, and communication with providers, especially if those tools play a role in your care.
Be Specific Wherever Possible
Don’t leave your fiduciaries guessing. Include guidance on:
- What accounts you want accessed
- Who should access them
- What you want done with each (e.g., saved, closed, archived, deleted)
A well-drafted estate plan paired with secure storage of your digital inventory gives your loved ones the clarity and legal protection they need to carry out your wishes with confidence.
How Our Trust Maintenance Program Helps
At Cookman Law, we understand that estate planning doesn’t end once the documents are signed. That’s why we offer our clients ongoing support through our Trust Maintenance Program, a service designed to keep your plan up to date and your loved ones informed.
A key feature of the program is our secure online vault, which allows you to:
- Store login information, instructions, and digital asset lists securely
- Keep your trust documents, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives all in one place
- Grant authorized access to your chosen trustee, executor, or power of attorney agent so they have what they need, when they need it
This tool is especially helpful when managing digital assets, which are often the most difficult to locate or access after someone passes away. Instead of your loved ones sorting through notebooks, old emails, or guessing at passwords, they’ll have a clear, centralized place to find important information – reducing confusion, stress, and delays during an already emotional time.
The Trust Maintenance Program also supports regular updates to your plan, so your digital instructions and account information stay current as your life and your technology evolve.
Digital estate planning is no longer optional; it’s an essential part of preparing for the future. Just like your home, bank accounts, or family heirlooms, your online life deserves thoughtful planning and clear instructions.
Whether it’s preserving meaningful memories, protecting financial assets, or giving your loved ones peace of mind, planning for your digital assets ensures that your legacy is complete and accessible when it matters most.
If you haven’t started yet, begin with a small step: make a list of your accounts, talk to an estate planning attorney, or explore tools like our Trust Maintenance Program to securely store and share your digital information.
If you’d like help organizing your digital and traditional assets, we’re here to walk you through it. At Cookman Law, we help families across California build plans that are practical, protective, and built to last in every part of life, both online and off.
