Can my family access my Gmail after I die?

Only if you set up Inactive Account Manager and named a trusted contact, or through Google's limited post-mortem request process, which does not guarantee access to content.

Should I write passwords in my will?

No. A will can become a public record when probated, and it is updated far less often than your passwords are. Use an encrypted vault and reference its existence in the will instead.

What happens to cryptocurrency held in self-custody?

Without the seed phrase or private key, nothing can recover it — no exchange, court order or death certificate. The seed phrase location must be recorded somewhere your family can reach.

Digital assets after death: what your family cannot access without you

A locked primary email account can strand a family more effectively than a locked bank account, because it is the recovery path for everything else.

Financial institutions have a death process. Technology platforms mostly have a memorialisation process, which is not the same thing. Very few of them will hand over the contents of an account, whatever documents you produce.

What the major platforms actually do

Platform	On death	Can a family get the data?
Google	Inactive Account Manager, if the user configured it	Only via the configured trusted contact, or a narrow request process
Apple	Legacy Contact, if configured	Legacy Contact with the access key and death certificate
Meta (Facebook/Instagram)	Memorialise or delete	No content access; legacy contact can manage the profile
Banking / UPI apps	Account frozen on intimation	Through the bank's death claim process, not the app
Exchanges / crypto wallets	Exchange has a nominee process; self-custody has none	Self-custody is unrecoverable without the seed phrase

The order of damage

Primary email — password resets for banking, investments and insurance all land here.
Phone number and the SIM — every OTP flows through it, and it is deactivated quickly if bills stop.
The 2FA device or authenticator app — losing it locks accounts that were otherwise recoverable.
Cloud storage — often the only copy of scanned documents and family photographs.
Self-custody crypto — with no seed phrase, the asset simply ceases to exist for the family.

How to record access without creating a security hole

Never put passwords in the will. A probated will can become a public court record.
Do not email credentials to yourself or keep them in a plain spreadsheet in cloud storage.
Use a vault that encrypts each credential with a derived key, and mark which credentials a specific family member is allowed to see.
Record the location of the 2FA device and the recovery codes separately from the passwords themselves.
Keep the SIM on a plan the family can continue paying, or note who should take it over.

Saarthi's digital access vault is built for exactly this: credentials are encrypted per record with an HKDF-derived key, and each one carries a privacy tier controlling which family member can ever see it.

A ten-minute exercise

Open your password manager or your browser's saved passwords and count. Then ask which five of those, if inaccessible tomorrow, would cost your family the most time. Record those five properly first.

Saarthi is a readiness and organization platform. It does not provide legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. Any generated drafts, checklists, or recommendations should be reviewed with qualified professionals before use.