The digital executor's checklist

A digital estate settles in a fixed order: secure the phone and email first, because every other account resets its password through them. Then list the money accounts, stop the recurring charges, and deal with social profiles last. This checklist walks the whole sequence: the documents to gather, the accounts to hunt down, and the order that saves you from locking yourself out.

• Order at least ten certified copies of the death certificate; nearly every company wants its own
• The phone number and email are the master keys: keep both alive until every account is settled
• Debts are paid from the estate, not from the family's own money (FTC, 2026)

What do you gather before touching any account?

Paperwork first, logins second. Every company you are about to contact asks for some mix of the same three documents, so build the folder once:

1. Certified copies of the death certificate. Order at least ten from the vital records office or the funeral home; nearly every institution wants its own copy, and reordering takes weeks.
2. Your government-issued photo ID, scanned front and back.
3. Proof of authority: the will naming you executor, or the letters testamentary (the court paper proving you are the executor) once probate opens.

Add a notebook or spreadsheet as the fourth item. You are about to open a dozen support cases, and in month three you will not remember which ones.

What do you secure in the first week?

The phone and the email, before anything else. They are the master keys: every bank, broker, and subscription resets its password through a text code or an inbox link, so losing them locks the whole estate. Keep the phone line paid and do not let anyone factory-reset the device. If the phone is locked, start Apple's process now with our iCloud and iPhone guide, and start Google's with the Gmail guide, because both take weeks and everything else waits on them.

Then stop the bleeding. Pull three months of bank and card statements, list every recurring charge, and work through our subscription cancellation guide. Recurring charges are the only part of the estate that gets worse while you wait.

Which accounts do you hunt down, and in what order?

Work the list by consequence, not alphabet:

1. Banks and brokerages. Call each one, report the death, and ask for its estate department's document list.
2. Payment platforms: PayPal and Venmo hold real balances and keep charging after a death.
3. Crypto. Exchange accounts like Coinbase are recoverable with estate papers; self-custody wallets need the seed phrase, and our lost-crypto page explains that hard line.
4. Government and income: Social Security, pensions, life insurance, the final tax return.
5. Subscriptions and utilities, from the statement sweep above.
6. Social accounts last. Facebook memorialization and its equivalents have no deadline, and deleting a profile too early destroys photos relatives may want.

One steadying note: the money layer runs on the court's clock, not yours. Once the urgent week is done, nothing here is an emergency.

What do you do with what you learn?

Write down every account you find, every case number, and every login you legitimately hold, because you are building the map the next person never got. Most of the pain in this checklist exists because one person carried the estate in their head. When your own affairs are the question, leave a list. That single page is the difference between a week of paperwork and a year of it.