A generation ago, an executor might have begun with a filing cabinet, a cheque book and a bundle of bank statements. Today, some of the most valuable or personally important parts of an estate may be hidden behind a phone passcode, an email address or a recovery phrase nobody else knows exists.
That does not mean everybody needs an elaborate “digital will”. Most people need something more practical: a valid ordinary will, a sensible digital-assets clause where appropriate, and a secure map showing their executors what exists and how it should be dealt with.
I suspect many of us have a better idea of what is in the kitchen cupboard than what is scattered across our cloud storage, old devices and forgotten online accounts. The difficulty is that digital clutter does not become easier to understand after its owner has died.
Quick answer: Transferable digital assets such as cryptocurrency, domain names, online account balances and copyright can form part of your estate and may be left by will. Other things, including many social-media accounts, streaming libraries, software licences and gaming accounts, may be personal to the user or subject to restrictions imposed by the provider. Your will should give suitable executors authority to deal with digital property, but passwords, private keys and recovery phrases should be kept securely outside the will. A separate digital inventory is usually the most useful starting point.
This guide applies principally to England and Wales. For the wider formalities, see my guide to writing a legally valid will.
Contents
- What are digital assets?
- What changed under the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025?
- Does your existing will already cover digital assets?
- Creating a digital-assets inventory
- How to include digital assets in a will
- Should you appoint a digital executor?
- Cryptocurrency, private keys and recovery phrases
- Email, social media and cloud storage
- Devices, passwords and lawful access
- Creative work, domains and online businesses
- Tax and valuation of digital assets
- Planning for loss of capacity
- What executors should do after a death
- What happens without a will?
- Frequently asked questions
What are digital assets?
“Digital assets” is a convenient expression rather than one precise legal category. It can cover valuable property, contractual rights, personal information, intellectual property and access to online services. Those things may look similar on a screen while receiving very different legal treatment.
A bank account does not become a special digital asset merely because you manage it through an app. The underlying money remains an ordinary financial asset. By contrast, a crypto-token held in a digital wallet may itself be a form of digital property.
It helps to divide your digital life into several broad groups.
Financial digital assets
These may include cryptocurrency, crypto-tokens, some non-fungible tokens, balances held with online payment services, income due from online platforms, digital investments and assets used within a genuine online business.
The fact that something has been bought does not always make it transferable. The legal position depends on what was actually acquired, the contractual terms and whether the law recognises a property right in it.
Creative and intellectual property
Digital photographs, manuscripts, artwork, music, videos, software, website content and online courses may be protected by copyright. The files themselves and the copyright in the work are related but separate.
Giving somebody a laptop containing photographs does not necessarily transfer the copyright in them. Equally, giving somebody copyright does not guarantee that they can locate or access the only surviving copies of the files.
Personal and sentimental material
This may include family photographs, videos, emails, messages, voice recordings, family-history research and documents held in cloud storage.
Some material has little financial value but enormous personal importance. A lost cryptocurrency wallet may be an obvious financial problem. A cloud account containing the only copies of a child’s early photographs can be just as upsetting for very different reasons.
Online accounts and licences
Email, social-media, gaming, streaming, software and shopping accounts may provide access to content or services without themselves being transferable property.
Many digital purchases are actually licences to use content subject to the provider’s terms. An e-book, downloaded film or music library may therefore receive different treatment from a collection of physical books, DVDs or records.
Physical devices
Phones, computers, tablets, external drives and hardware wallets are physical property. They may fall within a gift of personal possessions, depending on the wording of the will.
The data and rights accessible through the device are separate. Inheriting a phone does not necessarily mean inheriting every account, licence, photograph or confidential message available through it.
What changed under the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025?
The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 provides that a thing is not prevented from attracting personal-property rights merely because it falls outside the two traditional categories of personal property.
Those traditional categories are broadly physical things capable of possession and legally enforceable rights such as debts. Some digital things do not fit comfortably into either box.
The Act confirms that this awkward fit does not, by itself, stop a digital thing from being property. This supports the legal recognition of assets such as certain crypto-tokens.
It does not declare that everything stored electronically is property. Nor does it make every account transferable or override a contract stating that a service or licence is personal to the user. The courts will continue to determine which digital things attract property rights and what those rights involve.
The practical message for will-making is therefore encouraging but limited: valuable digital property can form part of an estate, but identifying the asset is only the first step. Executors must still establish who owns it, whether it is transferable and how it can lawfully be accessed.
Does your existing will already cover digital assets?
A well-drafted will containing an effective gift of the residue will usually cover transferable digital property, even if the will does not list every wallet, domain name or online account.
The residue is everything remaining after debts, tax, expenses and specific gifts have been dealt with. A broad residuary gift is important because digital holdings change frequently. A clause listing one particular cryptocurrency account may become outdated when the provider, wallet or investment changes.
However, a gift of “personal chattels” or personal possessions may not be enough. The statutory definition of personal chattels refers to tangible movable property. Intangible digital property does not ordinarily fall within that definition unless the will supplies its own wider wording.
This distinction can matter where, for example, the personal chattels are left to one person but the residue goes to somebody else. The laptop may pass to the first beneficiary while transferable digital property associated with it passes to the residuary beneficiary.
A digital-assets clause can help by:
- defining the digital property and accounts covered;
- confirming who should receive particular assets;
- giving executors authority to access, secure, transfer, archive or delete material where legally permitted;
- allowing executors to use suitably qualified technical assistance; and
- distinguishing valuable property from personal accounts and sentimental material.
The clause cannot make non-transferable rights transferable. It also cannot force a provider to disclose information contrary to the law or its binding contractual obligations.
Creating a digital-assets inventory
I would not begin by attempting to write passwords into a document. Start by identifying what exists.
A digital-assets inventory should record enough information to help an executor find the asset or account without unnecessarily exposing the means of accessing it. Depending on your circumstances, it might include:
- the name of the provider, platform, exchange or registrar;
- the username, account email or public wallet address;
- the general type of asset or material held;
- whether it has financial, business or sentimental value;
- the device, wallet or storage location associated with it;
- what you would like to happen to it; and
- where separate recovery or access instructions are securely stored.
You do not need to record every supermarket login or dormant newsletter account. Concentrate first on anything involving money, intellectual property, important records, irreplaceable memories or a continuing business.
Keep the inventory outside the will so that it can be updated without signing a new will or codicil. A will may remain unchanged for several years; an account list can become inaccurate before the ink on the will has had time to dry.
Tell your executors that the inventory exists and how it can be located. A perfectly organised encrypted file is of limited value if nobody knows its name, where it is stored or how the recovery process works.
How to include digital assets in a will
The appropriate wording depends on the nature and value of the assets. In many straightforward estates, the will may need only a broad definition, suitable administrative powers and a clear residuary gift.
Decide who should inherit valuable digital property
Cryptocurrency, valuable domain names, monetised content and intellectual property can be left to a particular beneficiary or allowed to pass as part of the residue.
Specific gifts require care. Digital investments and providers change quickly. A gift described by reference to one wallet or account could fail or produce an unexpected result if the asset is moved before death.
It may be better to describe the underlying class of asset rather than a particular platform, but the correct approach depends on what you own and what you want to achieve.
Record wishes for personal material
You may want family photographs preserved, a social-media profile memorialised, personal messages deleted or unpublished writing passed to a trusted person.
Some wishes may be better placed in a separate letter rather than the will itself. This keeps private or frequently changing instructions out of a document that normally becomes public after probate.
A letter of wishes is not generally binding in the same way as the will. The will should therefore contain any essential gift or legal authority, while the separate letter can provide practical detail.
Give executors suitable powers
Executors may need authority to secure devices, communicate with providers, obtain data, transfer digital property, close accounts or employ technical assistance.
Clear powers can reduce uncertainty between executors and beneficiaries. They do not, however, replace the provider’s bereavement procedure or permit executors to bypass security unlawfully.
Keep technical secrets outside the will
Do not include passwords, private keys, security answers or cryptocurrency recovery phrases in the will. Once a grant of probate is issued, the will is normally retained by the Probate Registry as a public record.
My guide explains in more detail who can see a will after death.
Should you appoint a digital executor?
“Digital executor” is a useful description, but it is not a separate statutory office with its own automatic powers.
Your ordinary executors are responsible for administering the property forming part of your estate. They can usually obtain suitable professional or technical assistance where the will and general law permit.
You could appoint an executor specifically to deal with digital property, but dividing responsibility between different executors can complicate the grant, decision-making, tax reporting and distribution of the estate. Specialist drafting is advisable if separate appointments are intended.
For many people, the better solution is to appoint reliable general executors, give them appropriate powers and identify a technically capable person or adviser who can assist.
Technical confidence is useful, but trustworthiness matters more. Somebody handling digital accounts may encounter private messages, confidential records, unpublished work and valuable security information. The role calls for judgement, not merely an ability to reset a router.
For more about the wider administration, see my guide to the probate process in England and Wales.
Cryptocurrency, private keys and recovery phrases
Cryptocurrency presents a particularly unforgiving form of estate planning. A traditional financial institution may have a bereavement team capable of locating an account from personal information. A self-custodied wallet may depend entirely on access to the correct private key or recovery phrase.
Exchange-held cryptocurrency
Where cryptocurrency is held through a centralised exchange or custodial provider, the executor will normally need to follow that provider’s bereavement procedure. The provider may require a death certificate, the will, proof of identity and a grant of probate or letters of administration.
The executor should not simply log in and transfer the holdings as though they were the deceased. Using the provider’s formal process creates a record of authority and reduces the risk of breaching its terms or triggering security concerns.
Self-custodied cryptocurrency
With self-custody, control may depend on a hardware wallet, private key, recovery phrase, passphrase or combination of these. There may be no central organisation capable of restoring access if the information is lost.
A safe plan must achieve two apparently conflicting things: prevent unauthorised access during life while allowing the right person to obtain control after death.
I would resist putting all parts of that plan into one ordinary document. A stolen list containing the wallet location and complete recovery phrase is not an estate plan; it is an invitation.
Record the existence and nature of the holding in the inventory, but store sensitive recovery information through a properly considered security arrangement. Significant holdings justify specialist legal, tax and technical advice.
NFTs and associated rights
Ownership of a non-fungible token does not necessarily include ownership of the copyright in the image, music or other work associated with it. The token, the linked file and the intellectual-property rights may be separate.
The will and inventory should identify what is actually owned and where the relevant licence or contract can be found. A beneficiary should not be promised intellectual-property rights that the testator never acquired.
Email, social media and cloud storage
An online account is often a gateway rather than an asset in itself. It may provide access to valuable property, personal information, licensed content or data belonging partly to other people.
Different providers apply different rules after death. Some allow a user to nominate a person in advance. Others permit an executor or relative to request deletion, memorialisation or limited disclosure. Some require formal legal documentation.
Apple allows users to appoint a Legacy Contact. Google provides an Inactive Account Manager through which a user can decide whether selected information should be shared or the account deleted after a period of inactivity.
These tools should be used alongside the will and inventory, not assumed to be replaced by them. They are provider-specific and may not release every category of data.
An email account may contain financial records, invoices, photographs, business correspondence and information needed to find other assets. It may also contain intensely private communications and information about living people.
UK data-protection legislation does not generally protect personal data relating solely to someone who has died. However, emails and messages may contain the personal data of living people, as well as confidential, commercially sensitive or legally privileged material.
An executor should not treat unrestricted access to an inbox as permission to circulate its contents among the family.
Social media
You may prefer an account to be memorialised, deleted or preserved temporarily so that photographs can be recovered. Record that preference and use any legacy setting made available by the platform.
Leaving an account “to” somebody in a will does not necessarily transfer the account. The platform’s terms may make it personal and non-transferable, even where individual photographs or copyright owned by the deceased can pass separately.
Cloud storage
Cloud storage may contain the only remaining copies of family photographs, personal writing or important records. Preserve important material independently rather than relying on one account and one provider continuing indefinitely.
A secure offline or alternative backup can make the difference between an executor recovering the material easily and having to persuade an international technology company to disclose it.
Devices, passwords and lawful access
Leaving somebody a computer or phone does not necessarily authorise them to impersonate you online or override the contractual rules applying to connected accounts.
Possession of a password is also not the same as legal entitlement. Executors should use formal bereavement and account-recovery procedures wherever available rather than assuming that knowing the login details answers every legal question.
Do not put passwords in the will
The Probate Registry keeps the will after the grant is issued and it becomes a public record. The Government confirms this in its guidance on what happens after a probate application.
A public will is therefore the wrong place for:
- account passwords;
- phone or device passcodes;
- two-factor authentication backup codes;
- bank security information;
- private cryptographic keys; or
- wallet recovery phrases.
A reputable password manager, secure sealed record or other carefully planned arrangement may be more appropriate. The National Cyber Security Centre provides guidance on using password managers securely.
Preserve devices before changing anything
After a death, executors should avoid hastily resetting a phone, disposing of an old computer or cancelling services before understanding what they provide access to. A device may contain authentication tools, locally stored files or information identifying previously unknown assets.
This does not mean searching indiscriminately through every personal message. The executor should have a proper estate-administration purpose and respect the rights and privacy of others.
Creative work, domains and online businesses
Digital estate planning is particularly important for writers, photographers, musicians, designers, software developers, influencers and anybody earning income through online content.
Copyright
Copyright can be a valuable estate asset. For many written, dramatic, musical and artistic works, it generally lasts until 70 years after the end of the calendar year in which the author dies, although different rules apply to some types of work.
The Intellectual Property Office explains how long copyright protection lasts.
A will should distinguish between physical or digital copies of a work and the copyright itself. It may also need to address royalties, licensing decisions, unpublished work and who may complete or edit unfinished material.
Domain names and websites
A valuable domain name may be capable of transfer, subject to the registrar’s rules. Executors need to know the registrar, renewal date, account details and whether the domain supports a business or valuable website.
Allowing a commercially important domain to expire while the estate is being administered can destroy value remarkably quickly.
Online businesses and monetised content
A website, online shop, subscription community or monetised channel may involve contracts, customer data, intellectual property, payment accounts and continuing liabilities.
The will is only one part of the succession plan. Business partners or colleagues may need legitimate administrative access during the owner’s lifetime, and company documents, partnership agreements or platform rules may affect what happens on death.
Where an online business depends entirely on one person’s private account, the operational problem should be addressed now rather than left for executors to discover later.
Tax and valuation of digital assets
Digital property is not outside the tax system merely because it cannot be held in the hand.
HM Revenue and Customs states that cryptoassets form part of the estate for Inheritance Tax purposes. Personal representatives must identify and value them along with the deceased’s other assets.
Official guidance on valuing an estate for Inheritance Tax specifically includes cryptoassets.
Valuation can be difficult where prices fluctuate sharply, the asset is illiquid or the executor has not yet obtained access. Executors should retain evidence of the valuation method, exchange rates and prices used at the date of death.
A later sale or disposal may also have Capital Gains Tax consequences. The tax treatment will depend on the nature of the asset, its probate value, subsequent changes in value and the person making the disposal.
Online businesses, royalties and platform income may create additional Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax or accounting issues. Significant holdings should not be distributed before appropriate tax advice has been obtained.
Planning for loss of capacity
A will takes effect only on death. It does not give an executor authority to deal with cryptocurrency, online banking or digital business records while you are alive.
If illness or injury leaves you unable to manage your property and financial affairs, an attorney appointed under a registered Lasting Power of Attorney may be able to act for you. The provider’s security procedures and contractual terms will still apply.
Digital planning should therefore consider both death and incapacity. A business or valuable portfolio can be harmed long before death if nobody has authority or sufficient information to manage it.
My separate guide explains how a Lasting Power of Attorney works.
What executors should do after a death
When digital assets may be involved, executors should take a methodical approach:
- Locate the will and digital inventory. Check whether there is a later will, codicil or letter of wishes.
- Secure devices and records. Preserve phones, computers, hardware wallets and relevant paperwork without immediately resetting or disposing of them.
- Identify the legal nature of each item. Distinguish transferable property from personal data, contractual licences and non-transferable accounts.
- Use formal provider procedures. Contact exchanges, payment services, registrars and online platforms with the required evidence of death and authority.
- Value estate assets. Obtain date-of-death values and include taxable digital property in the estate accounts and relevant tax returns.
- Protect security and confidentiality. Restrict access to private keys, passwords and sensitive information to those who genuinely need it.
- Transfer, preserve or close. Follow the will, platform rules and any relevant letter of wishes, keeping a clear record of decisions and transactions.
Digital assets form part of the wider administration and should not be dealt with in isolation from debts, tax, beneficiaries and the executor’s general duties. The executor’s year guide explains the expected timetable for administering an estate.
What happens without a will?
If somebody dies without a valid will, transferable digital property forming part of their estate passes under the intestacy rules. An administrator rather than a will-appointed executor will deal with the estate.
Intestacy does not solve the problems of discovery and access. An administrator cannot distribute a wallet nobody knows exists or recover cloud photographs that cannot be located.
Nor do the intestacy rules carry out personal wishes about deleting messages, preserving an online archive or passing copyright to the person best able to manage it.
Unmarried partners, friends and stepchildren do not automatically inherit under intestacy merely because they were close to the deceased. My guide explains who inherits without a will.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to list every digital asset in my will?
No. A properly drafted residuary gift can usually cover transferable digital property without every item being listed. A separate inventory is better for frequently changing details such as providers, usernames and storage locations.
Can cryptocurrency be inherited?
Yes. Cryptoassets can form part of an estate and may pass under a will or the intestacy rules. The practical difficulty is ensuring that the personal representatives can identify, access, value and transfer them securely.
Can I leave my social-media account to somebody?
Not necessarily. A platform may treat the account as personal and non-transferable. You may instead be able to nominate a legacy contact or request memorialisation or deletion. Separately owned content or copyright may still be capable of passing under the will.
Can my executor use my passwords?
They should not assume that possession of a password gives unrestricted authority to use an account. Provider procedures, contractual terms, confidentiality and the rights of other people may all be relevant. Formal bereavement processes should normally be followed.
Are digital photographs inherited?
Photographic files may form part of the estate, and copyright owned by the deceased may pass separately. Access depends on where the files are stored and the provider’s rules. A family member inheriting a phone does not automatically obtain every legal right associated with the images on it.
Can I leave my e-books, music and films?
Sometimes, but many digital purchases are licences rather than freely transferable property. Check the provider’s current terms. A will cannot give a beneficiary greater rights than you owned.
Do I need a separate digital will?
Usually not. Digital property can be addressed within an ordinary valid will, supported by a separate inventory and secure access arrangements.
A “digital will” can also mean a will created and signed electronically. That is a different issue. As at August 2026, the Law Commission has recommended secure electronic wills, but those recommendations have not yet changed the ordinary execution rules in England and Wales. A will should still be made and signed in accordance with the current formal requirements.
Should younger adults plan for digital assets?
Yes. Younger adults may have few traditional possessions but extensive digital photographs, online income, cryptocurrency, gaming content or creative work. My guide considers more broadly whether you need a will under 40.
Leave a map, not a maze
Digital estate planning does not require a perfectly catalogued record of every account opened since the first days of the internet. Few of us have either the patience or the archaeological skills for that.
The useful aim is simpler: make sure your executors know that important digital assets exist, understand what you want to happen and can find the secure route to the information they genuinely need.
The will should deal with legal authority and inheritance. The inventory should identify the assets and accounts. Secure arrangements should protect passwords, keys and recovery information. Platform legacy settings should be used where available.
Each part solves a different problem. Put together, they can prevent valuable property, important records and irreplaceable memories from disappearing into a device nobody can unlock.
For more guidance on wills, future decision-making and estate planning, visit my lifetime planning guides.
Last legally reviewed: 5 August 2026
This guide is based on general principles of English and Welsh law, is intended for informational purposes only, and does not constitute legal advice or establish a professional relationship.
