Digital legacy planning: your photos, voice and stories

Most of us now keep the photos of a lifetime on a phone and in an account. If nothing is arranged, those photos can end up behind a code nobody knows, in an account that is deleted, or in a folder of twenty thousand files without a single name. A digital legacy plan is how you prevent that, for the part that matters most: your photos, your voice and your stories.

This guide is practical. It is not legal advice, and a plan like this is not a will. For questions about inheritance law in your country, a notary or lawyer is the right person to ask.

What a digital legacy is

Your digital legacy is everything you leave behind in digital form. That includes accounts and passwords, but for most families the part that hurts to lose is something else: the photos of the children when they were small, a video of a birthday, a voice message, the story of how two people met. This guide is about that part.

The four decisions in a legacy plan

1. What. Which photos, recordings and stories truly matter? Inheriting twenty thousand photos is a chore. Inheriting two hundred, with names and stories, is a gift.
2. Who. Who receives what? Your daughter may want everything; a nephew only the photos of his own parents; a friend the room about your years together.
3. When. On a fixed date, for example a birthday, or only after you are gone.
4. Who checks. Someone you trust who can confirm that the moment has really come, or stop it if it has not.

A plan in seven steps

1. Make a list of where your memories are. Phones, old phones, computers, external drives, Google, iCloud, Facebook, a box of prints. You do not need to sort anything yet.
2. Choose what matters. Start with one period or one person. Take the photos that only you can still explain.
3. Add the context. A name, a year and a sentence per photo. Better still, your voice: a recording of you telling who is on the photo will mean more later than any caption.
4. Decide who receives what. Write it down per person. Think about the people who are still young now.
5. Set up the legacy settings of your accounts. Google, Apple and Facebook each have their own arrangement. Our guide on your photos and accounts after death explains them one by one.
6. Write down where everything is. A list of your accounts, without passwords, kept with your important papers. Passwords change and a will is read by several people, so do not put them there.
7. Tell the people involved. A contact who does not know they are one will never go looking. Review the plan once a year, for example on your birthday.

Your voice is part of your legacy

Families rarely regret having too many recordings of a voice. They often regret having none. You do not need special equipment: a phone is enough. Take one photo a week and tell, in a minute, who is on it and what you remember. If you do not know where to start, our free family interview gives you one question and two gentle follow-up questions, without an account. For more ideas, see voice memos as a way to keep memories.

How the legacy plan in The Memory Palace works

The Memory Palace is a private 3D palace for a family's photos, recordings, stories and family tree. The legacy plan sits under Settings, Legacy and has three parts.

Legacy contacts

You add the people who will receive access, with their name, email address and relationship. For each person you choose how much they will see: the whole palace, certain wings, or certain rooms.

Messages

You can write letters to the people who matter most. For each letter you choose when it is delivered: on a specific date, when the time comes, or straight away.

When and who checks

You choose a period of silence, from 3 to 36 months: if you have not logged in for that long, the plan starts. Nobody decides over your head. You receive an email yourself first, and then 30 days follow in which you can still respond. You also name a trusted person who is contacted to confirm, and who can stop the transfer.

A few more things you can count on:

• Private until you share. Wings and rooms are private by default.
• You can always take everything with you. A full export as a ZIP file, also on the free plan, and the family tree as a GEDCOM file.
• No big words. We do not promise "forever". We promise that you decide who, what and when.

What a legacy plan does not do

• It is not a will and does not settle who inherits money, property or rights.
• It does not unlock other services. Your Google, Apple and Facebook accounts follow their own rules.
• It is not legal advice. Rules differ by country; a notary or lawyer can tell you what applies to you.

What it does do is make sure the photos, the voice and the stories you chose end up with the people you chose, with the names and the context that make them understandable.

Related guides

• Digital legacy: your photos and accounts after death
• Building a legacy: what to leave behind for your children
• Memory keeper app: how to choose one for your family