How To Add A Legacy Contact For Your Apple ID
Traditional estate planning tools were developed over centuries with physical and – as time went by, liquid and even intangible – assets in mind. These tools continue to play an important role in assisting individuals who long to facilitate the probate process for the loved ones they leave behind in preparing for the final administration of their own estates. Just as tools such as the beneficiary designations on savings accounts developed to facilitate the transfer of wealth held in banks rather than secured at home, however, the emergence of digital assets has given rise to a new wave of estate planning tools that directly address the handling of the digital assets – and digital legalities – many individuals now leave behind at their deaths. Establishing a legacy contact for your Apple ID can enable you to control who can access your stored data, and gives you the opportunity to include instructions for the final disposition of your Apple account. Similar legacy contact options are available for many other digital services, so you may wish to consider having a conversation with an estate planning attorney in your area to develop a plan for the final administration of your digital life. Call Loughlin Law, P.A. at 561-559-6214 to schedule a consultation.
What Is a Legacy Contact?
A legacy contact is a designation used in digital estate planning and the management of digital accounts. Many platforms now offer legacy contact options or comparable tools to allow users to designate a trusted individual to access their accounts to take care of final administrative tasks in the event of the account holder’s death. Usually the legacy contacts are designated and authorized within the user’s account settings for the relevant platform, although the legacy contact the user designates may need to provide the platform with proof of both the account holder’s death and their own identity to satisfy the platform’s security protocols and gain access to the account information for which the user assigned legacy contact authorization.
The Purpose of a Legacy Contact
The goal of the legacy contact settings is to ensure that individuals who have active accounts with a digital platform or service are able to name someone they trust to access important information held in those accounts once the account owner has passed away. For social media platforms, a legacy contact’s responsibility may also include posting a temporary public notice regarding the account holder’s death, and in some cases sending individual private notifications to frequent contacts prior to deactivating or archiving the account.
On some platforms, such as Facebook, account holders can choose between naming a legacy contact and having their profiles permanently deleted once the platform administrators have been notified of the individual’s death. The legacy contact on a Facebook account can perform a variety of actions, such as updating the profile photo and cover images and adding a pinned post memorializing the deceased user. An Apple account typically has little to no social presence, so the responsibilities that fall to the legacy contact for an Apple ID tend to be more limited in scope, and focused on the management of the technical and administrative details that need to be addressed in order to close out the account.
What Information Can a Legacy Contact Access?
The type and extent of information a legacy contact will be able to access after your death will depend partly on the platform. In some instances, the services you yourself have set up on the platform may make a difference as well. Apple provides a list of the types of information a legacy contact will be able to access for your Apple Account, as well as a separate list detailing types of information and account actions that are explicitly excluded from a legacy contact’s purview.
Information an Apple ID Legacy Contact Cannot Access
Apple reserves some types of information, excluding them from the information to which legacy contacts are granted access after passing review. The company also excludes some digital materials, such as those you have purchased under license. Items your legacy contact will not be able to access include:
- Copyrighted items to which you have purchased a license (the license is not treated as transferable)
- Purchases made “in-app” (i.e., within a program on an Apple device), such as subscriptions or upgrades to third-party digital services, or currency or tokens used in online games
- Credit card or other payment information, such as default the payment method linked to your Apple Account or any cards you have added to your digital wallet to use via Apple Pay
- Passwords or other sensitive information stored using Apple’s Keychain
These limitations protect data associated with financial accounts and related services. In Florida, most of these matters are likely to be handled by the Personal Representative you name in your Last Will and Testament, as described in Fla. Rev. Stat. § 733.301 (2024). The restrictions also protect other parties’ intellectual property rights by preventing the transfer of license agreements to third parties (in this case, the legacy contact) without the licensor’s agreement.
Information Your Apple Legacy Contact Can Access
Outside of these listed exclusions, Apple offers relatively broad access to designated legacy contacts, provided they first provide the necessary documentation to prove that the account holder is deceased and that they are the individuals designated as legacy contacts in the decedent’s Apple ID settings. However, the types of information available to the legacy contact in any specific situation will depend to some extent on how the account holder managed his or her digital services and footprint during life.
Generally speaking, your designated legacy contact will be able to access files you have stored in iCloud, as well as in your iCloud Backup if you have this feature enabled. Common examples of data found in iCloud storage include:
- Photos from your phone or computer
- Notes taken using Apple’s Notes program
- Emails sent and received using Apple’s Mail app (but not necessarily accounts with third party email services set to forward to or from your Apple Mail)
- Reminders, scheduled via any device
- Messages stored in iCloud (usually iMessages)
- Call history (including FaceTime)
- Stored contacts
- Data saved using Apple Health (most common for individuals who wear and sync an Apple watch)
- Recordings saved in Voice Memos
- Any files stored in your iCloud Drive
- Copies, such as downloaded apps or digital content, stored via iCloud Backup
- Bookmarks and any Reading List items stored in Safari
Within these areas, you will not be able to exclude specific types of data, so it is important to be sure that you choose your legacy contact wisely, and also that you store any information you do not want this individual to access somewhere other than in your iCloud (and its backup).
How Do You Set Up a Legacy Contact for Apple?
According to instructions provided by Apple, your legacy contact can generally be any adult of your choosing; in the United States, minors under 13 years of age will not be able to request access to your account. Older teens are not subject to this restriction in Florida, but if you are considering designating a minor living overseas as your legacy contact, you may wish to review country-specific age requirements. The legacy contact you name does not need to have an existing Apple account of their own. However, you will need to set up their access from an Apple device yourself. As of June 2025, minimum system requirements include iOS 15.2 or higher for iPhones, macOS Monterey 12.1 or higher for a Mac computer (desktop or laptop), or iPadOS 15.2 or higher to set a legacy contact from an iPad. You will also need to have two-factor authentication enabled for your Apple account before you can add a legacy contact.
Once you have chosen a contact, make sure your operating system is up to date, and checked that two-factor authentication is turned on for your Apple ID:
- Go to Settings, on iPhone or iPad, or System Settings on Mac.
- Tap or click your name.
- Choose Sign-In & Security by clicking or tapping.
- In the menu that appears, select Legacy Contact.
- Authenticate if asked to do so.
- Choose a name from Family Sharing or your list of Contacts.
- Retrieve the Access Key.
You can send the Access Key via Messages if your chosen legacy contact has an Apple account running up-to-date software, but Apple recommends also printing and storing a physical copy of the Access Key with your other estate planning documents for safekeeping. Your legacy contact will have to present both the Access Key and your death certificate in order to go through the process for requesting access to your account after you pass away.
Speak With a Florida Estate Planning Lawyer
If you are considering setting up a legacy contact for your Apple ID, you are likely to have a number of other questions and concerns related to digital estate planning. Speaking with a probate lawyer in your area may help you to identify the priorities crucial to your main estate planning goals. An estate planning attorney may also be able to review your suite of estate planning tools with you and help you evaluate strategies for integrating the closure of your digital accounts with the other considerations involved in the final administration of your estate. Reach out to Loughlin Law, P.A. to schedule a consultation. Call 561-559-6214 today to reach our Boca Raton office.
