Getting Started with Digital Estate Planning: A Simple Checklist

Start Small, Then Build

Digital estate planning can feel overwhelming, so the trick is to break it into small, concrete steps. You don't have to finish everything today. Work through this checklist over a few sessions, and you'll end up with a plan that genuinely protects your family.

Step 1: Inventory Your Most Important Accounts

Begin with the accounts that would cause the biggest problems if they were lost or left open. A good starting list:

• Primary and secondary email accounts
• Password manager or wherever you store passwords
• Banking, investment, and payment apps
• Cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges
• Cloud storage and photo libraries
• Social media profiles
• Subscriptions and recurring bills
• Domain names, websites, or online businesses

Step 2: Note What You Want to Happen

For each account, jot down a simple wish: keep, close, transfer, memorialize, or delete. This guidance is often more valuable to your family than the passwords themselves.

Step 3: Store Access Securely

Never keep credentials in a plain document, an email draft, or a note on your phone. Use a vault with strong encryption. With Legacy Signal, credentials and documents are protected by client-side encryption — they're encrypted on your device before syncing, so only you and the people you authorize can ever read them.

Step 4: Choose Trusted Contacts and an Executor

Decide who should be able to act on your behalf:

• Trusted contacts are people you rely on and may notify.
• Your executor is the person you empower to carry out your plan.

Choose people who are responsible, level-headed, and likely to be available. Have a real conversation with them so they aren't surprised later.

Step 5: Understand the Safeguard Period

A good digital vault doesn't release your information the moment someone asks. Legacy Signal uses a safeguard period — a built-in delay and verification step before access is granted — so your data is protected against premature or mistaken requests while you're alive.

Step 6: Prepare the Closure Playbook

Closing accounts is tedious. Legacy Signal's account-closure playbook gives your executor a structured, step-by-step guide for handling each provider, so they aren't left guessing.

Step 7: Consider a Family Plan

If you share finances, subscriptions, or responsibilities with family members, a family plan lets you share selected items and keep everyone aligned. It also makes executor conversations easier because expectations are documented.

Step 8: Review Regularly

Your digital life changes. Set a reminder to review your plan at least once a year and after major life events — a move, marriage, new account, or the loss of a loved one.

A Quick Recap Checklist

• Inventory key accounts
• Note your wishes for each
• Store credentials in an encrypted vault
• Name trusted contacts and an executor
• Understand the safeguard period
• Prepare the closure playbook
• Set up a family plan if relevant
• Schedule an annual review

You're Already Ahead

Simply reading this checklist puts you ahead of most people, who never plan at all. Take one step today — even just listing your top five accounts — and you've begun turning a future crisis into a manageable, well-organized plan.