The First 30 Days: A Digital Cleanup Timeline After a Death
Updated August 2026
Nothing about a loved one's digital accounts needs to happen the day after a funeral. But spread across a month, in the right order, the whole digital side of an estate becomes a series of small, manageable tasks instead of one overwhelming wall. Here's the week-by-week version — go at your own pace; the order matters more than the speed.
Week 1 — Secure and gather (don't close anything yet)
- Don't log into anything. Even with the password. It can flag accounts and create legal exposure — here's why.
- Secure the phone: charged, safe, not factory-reset, not returned to the carrier.
- Order 5–10 certified death certificates through the funeral home or vital records office.
- Start the account list: everything the family can name from memory, plus whatever the mail pile reveals.
- Begin the authority process: if there's a will, the named executor contacts the Register of Wills for letters testamentary; if not, next of kin petitions for administration. Everything downstream needs this.
Week 2 — Inventory and decide
- Run the statement audit: three months of every account and card, one year of the primary card, circling every recurring charge — the full method is in our subscription-finding guide.
- Make the preservation list: photos, emails, videos, documents the family wants saved. This list dictates everything in week 3, because closure destroys data on several major platforms.
- Decide memorialize vs. delete for each social account — or explicitly postpone; memorialization keeps that door open. The decision framework walks through it.
- Assemble the document stack: the executor checklist covers exactly what each platform wants.
Week 3 — File, in the right order
- Data/preservation requests first — Google, Apple (via Legacy Contact if one exists; expect the court-order conversation if not), and any platform holding content the family wants.
- Email and cloud accounts next — highest security risk if left unattended, and their processes take the longest.
- Social media — memorialization or deletion requests per the week-2 decisions. Remember Facebook and Instagram are separate filings.
- Cancel the simple subscriptions — streaming and app services that stop with an email to support. Utilities and phone plans need the executor and often a transfer decision (keeping the phone number active can matter for lawful processes still in flight).
Week 4 — Follow up and document
- Nudge everything unanswered: most platforms need 2–4 weeks; polite persistence with the confirmation number is what moves stalled requests.
- Re-check the statements for the next billing cycle — charges that survived the first sweep get the bank-backstop treatment plus a proper cancellation.
- Write the summary: every account, action taken, date, confirmation. It goes in the estate's records.
What day 30 actually looks like: everything filed, not everything finished. Platforms take weeks to confirm — Microsoft's next-of-kin process alone runs 2–4 weeks, and discretionary data reviews can run longer. A "done" digital estate at day 30 means every request is submitted, logged, and being tracked — the confirmations then arrive on the platforms' schedule, not yours.
Would you rather not deal with this at all?
Quiet Closure handles the entire digital side of an estate — every platform, every form, every follow-up — for a flat fee, entirely by email. We never ask for passwords.
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