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Password managers · Emergency access

What happens to your password manager when you die

A password manager can be the key to every other account, or the lock that keeps your family out of all of them.

Legacy setting

What happens if nothing is set up

Good password managers encrypt your vault so that only your master password can open it. The provider typically cannot reset it or hand it over, even to a grieving family with a death certificate.

That means a vault with no recovery plan is effectively sealed for good. Every account inside it then has to be recovered one by one, if it can be recovered at all.

Set up well, though, a password manager is the single most useful thing you can leave behind: one secure place holding the keys to everything else.

Steps

How to set up emergency access

The details differ between products, but the pattern is the same: choose a person, set a waiting period if offered, and make sure they know.

  1. Check what your manager offers

    Search your password manager's help centre for 'emergency access' or 'Emergency Kit' to see which option it has.

  2. Add a trusted person

    If emergency access is available, invite someone you trust. They usually need an account with the same service.

  3. Set a waiting period

    Where offered, choose how long the service waits before granting access, giving you time to decline a request you did not expect.

  4. Or store your recovery kit

    If your manager uses an Emergency Kit, print it, fill it in and keep it with your will or in another secure place your executor knows about.

  5. Plan for two-step verification

    Note how someone could pass your second sign-in step, for example which device or recovery codes they will need.

  6. Tell the person

    Explain what they will get and what you would like done with it.

Features and plan requirements differ between providers and change over time, so check your own manager's current documentation.

What your family can request

What family can do depends almost entirely on the plan you leave.

  • A named emergency contact can request access, granted after any waiting period you set
  • Someone with your Emergency Kit or recovery details can open the vault
  • On family plans, an organiser may be able to help recover a member's account, depending on the product
  • Without any of these, the provider usually cannot open the vault

Documents usually requested

  • Usually none for emergency access, because it is arranged in advance
  • For closing a paid account, the provider may ask for proof of death and of authority

Policies change. Treat this as a starting point and confirm on each service's own help pages.

FAQ

Questions about Password managers

Usually not. Most are designed so that only your master password can decrypt the vault, which is why emergency access or a recovery kit matters.

A feature in some managers, such as Bitwarden and LastPass, that lets a trusted person request access to your vault. It is granted after a waiting period you choose unless you decline.

1Password relies on its Emergency Kit, which holds the details needed to sign in, and on recovery through family or team accounts. Keep the kit somewhere your executor can find it.

Only somewhere genuinely secure, such as with your will or in a sealed note released by your rules, for example in Sealkept, delivered only if you stop checking in. Never in plain email.

Other services

Other accounts to plan for

Back to all accounts

Related reading

One service at a time. Or the whole picture at once.

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