Making a digital inventory

An executor faced with digital accounts has two problems: getting in, and knowing what to get into.

The second is solvable without any security compromise at all, and it is the one that most often defeats people.

What an inventory is

A list of what exists. Not credentials. Just what and where.

Because it contains no passwords, it can be stored with your will, given to your executor, kept in a drawer, and updated easily.

What to include

Email accounts. All of them, including old ones. Note which is the primary one used for account recovery.

Financial. Banks, building societies, credit cards, investment platforms, pensions, insurance, payment services, and any online-only providers.

Online-only banks are particularly worth listing, since there is no paper statement to find and no branch to visit.

Cryptocurrency, if any, and where and how it is held.

Subscriptions and recurring payments. Streaming, software, storage, memberships, deliveries, apps.

Storage. Cloud storage services, and what is in them — particularly photographs.

Social and communication accounts.

Shopping and marketplace accounts, particularly any holding a balance or used for selling.

Domains and websites, including hosting and registrar.

Business accounts, if applicable.

Devices. Phones, tablets, computers, external drives, and where they are.

Loyalty and reward accounts, where balances are meaningful.

Professional contacts. Solicitor, accountant, financial adviser, insurance broker.

What to say about each

Keep it brief. The service, roughly what it is for, and any note that helps.

Examples of useful notes: "main current account, salary paid here", "photographs from 2015 onward, paid annually in March", "holds a balance, needs closing", "this is where the will is", "delete this one".

Stating what you want done with each is genuinely helpful and takes a few extra words.

What not to include

Passwords. PINs. Security answers. Seed phrases. Account numbers in full.

These go in a password manager, or in a separate sealed document, referenced by the inventory rather than contained in it.

The separation is what allows the inventory to be stored openly.

Where to keep it

With your will, or wherever your executor will look first.

Give a copy to your executor. Tell one other person it exists.

A printed copy is worth having, since a digital inventory stored in an inaccessible account is a joke.

The companion document

Alongside the inventory, a short note explaining how to get in.

Something like: "I use a password manager. The service is this one. My master password is in a sealed envelope in the desk. My phone passcode is in the same envelope. Emergency access is set up for [name], who can request it through the service."

That is the whole mechanism, described in four sentences.

Keeping it current

Once a year, alongside whatever other annual review you do.

Date it. An inventory from five years ago is misleading, which is worse than none in some respects.

Add things as you acquire them. Most people accumulate a few new accounts a year and forget them immediately.

Doing it for someone else

If you are helping an older relative, the inventory is a considerably easier conversation than passwords or finances.

You are asking what exists rather than what is in it, which is much less sensitive, and it produces most of the practical benefit.

Offer to write it down for them if they find it difficult.

If you are an executor without an inventory

Building one after the fact is harder and possible.

Bank statements for a year, line by line, which reveal subscriptions, insurers and providers.

The email inbox, searched for receipts, statements and renewals. The most productive single source.

The physical post, over several months, which continues to reveal accounts.

The devices, which list installed applications and stored accounts.

Browser bookmarks and saved passwords, which frequently reveal what the person used.

Tracing services, which exist in several countries for unclaimed pensions, dormant accounts and lost insurance policies.

This process takes months and it is where an evening of the deceased's time would have saved a great deal.

The argument for doing it

Everything else in digital estate planning involves trade-offs between security and access.

The inventory involves none. It costs an evening, it exposes nothing, and it converts the hardest part of an executor's job into a checklist.

Keep credentials separate from the inventory. Legal rights of executors to access accounts differ by jurisdiction and by platform terms.