What Happens to Your Social Media Accounts When You Die? (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn)

Why Should You Care About What Happens to Your Social Media After Death?

You should care because your social media accounts will almost certainly outlive you — and what happens to them is largely out of your family's control unless you plan ahead. The average American adult maintains accounts on seven or more social media platforms, each governed by its own terms of service, each with its own policy (or lack of one) for handling the profiles of the dead. When you die, your family will be grieving. The last thing they need is to spend weeks filling out forms, gathering death certificates, and negotiating with automated support systems at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, and Pinterest simultaneously.

The scale of this problem is staggering. An Oxford Internet Institute study found that at least 1.4 billion Facebook users will die before 2100, and that deceased accounts could outnumber living ones on the platform by 2070 (Oxford Internet Institute, 2019). In the U.S. alone, Facebook is projected to host 63.9 million deceased accounts by 2025, Instagram around 25.2 million, and the total across all major platforms could reach 659 million by 2100 (Dataconomy, 2024). Yet only 3% of users have activated the memorialization settings that platforms offer (Privacy Conference, 2025). That means 97% of people are leaving their digital legacy entirely to chance.

This guide walks through what actually happens on each major platform when an account holder dies, what your family can and cannot do, and how to take control of your digital legacy right now. For a broader view of digital estate planning beyond social media, see our complete guide to digital legacy planning.

What Happens to Your Facebook Account When You Die?

Facebook offers two options for your account after death: memorialization or permanent deletion. If someone reports your death and provides proof (such as an obituary link, death certificate, or memorial card), Facebook will memorialize your profile. The word "Remembering" appears next to your name, friends can still post tributes on your timeline, and all existing content remains visible to the audience it was originally shared with. However, no one can log into a memorialized account (Facebook Help Center).

What Is a Facebook Legacy Contact and How Do You Set One Up?

A Facebook Legacy Contact is a person you designate to manage your profile after it is memorialized. Your Legacy Contact can write a pinned post on your profile (such as a funeral announcement), respond to new friend requests, update your profile picture and cover photo, and request a download of your data. They cannot log into your account, read your private messages, remove existing friends, or make new posts as you. To set one up, go to Settings > Accounts Center > Personal Details > Account Ownership and Control > Memorialization Settings, then choose a trusted friend or family member. You must be 18 or older to designate a Legacy Contact (Facebook Help Center).

The important limitation: if you don't set up a Legacy Contact before you die, no one will have even partial management ability over your memorialized profile. Your account will simply freeze in place, accumulating birthday reminders and "People You May Know" suggestions that can be deeply painful for your surviving family. Facebook also allows you to choose account deletion after death instead of memorialization — but only if you make that selection yourself, in advance.

How Does Your Family Request Memorialization or Deletion?

Any Facebook user can submit a memorialization request by filling out the Memorialization Request form on Facebook's Help Center page. They must provide the deceased's name, profile URL, date of death, and proof of death. For account deletion rather than memorialization, only a verified immediate family member or legal executor can submit a Special Request for Deceased Person's Account form, which requires additional documentation including a death certificate and proof of authority to act on behalf of the estate.

What Happens to Your Instagram Account When You Die?

Instagram, which is owned by Meta (the same parent company as Facebook), offers memorialization and deletion but does not currently have a Legacy Contact feature for Instagram-specific profiles. When an account is memorialized, "Remembering" appears next to the person's name, the account is removed from the Explore section and public discovery features, and all existing posts remain visible to their original audience. No one can log into a memorialized Instagram account or make changes to it (Instagram Help Center).

How Can Your Family Memorialize or Delete Your Instagram?

Anyone can request memorialization by using Instagram's "Report a Deceased Person's Account" form. Instagram requires proof of death — typically a link to an obituary or news article. For account removal, only an immediate family member can submit the request, and a death certificate is required. There is a key difference from Facebook: because Instagram lacks a Legacy Contact feature, there is no one who can manage the memorialized profile in any capacity. It simply becomes a static memorial, frozen as it was on the day of the last post (USA Today, 2025). With Instagram projected to have 25.2 million deceased user accounts in the U.S. by 2025 (Dataconomy, 2024), this gap in policy design affects millions of families.

What Happens to Your TikTok Account When You Die?

TikTok does not offer any memorialization option. The platform currently only allows family members or legal representatives to request the deactivation and removal of a deceased user's account by providing proof of death. There is no way to preserve the account as a memorial, designate a Legacy Contact, or download the deceased user's content through an official post-mortem process (Navy Mutual, 2025).

How Do You Report a Death on TikTok?

Families can report a deceased user's account through TikTok's in-app reporting feature — navigating to the profile, tapping the Share button, then Report, then Report Account — or by contacting TikTok support directly. Documentation including a death certificate and proof of relationship is typically required. The process can take weeks, and TikTok's support infrastructure is widely regarded as slower and less transparent than Facebook's or Instagram's. If a deceased user's TikTok videos were significant to the family, the only reliable way to preserve them is to download or screen-record them before requesting account removal (Funeral.com, 2026).

What Happens to Your X (Twitter) Account When You Die?

X (formerly Twitter) does not offer memorialization. The platform only allows deactivation of a deceased user's account upon request. An authorized family member, personal representative, or estate executor can submit a request through X's Help Center by providing the deceased's username, a copy of the death certificate, a copy of the requester's government-issued ID, and a signed statement of relationship or legal authority (X Help Center).

Can You Plan Ahead for Your X Account?

No — X does not offer any pre-death planning tools. There is no Legacy Contact feature, no memorialization option, and no way to declare your wishes for the account in advance. Additionally, X's inactive account policy states that accounts may be "permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity," meaning the platform could delete a deceased user's account on its own timeline regardless of the family's wishes. Forbes reported as early as 2020 that X "still doesn't know how to deal with its dead" — and that assessment remains largely accurate (Forbes, 2020).

What Happens to Your LinkedIn Account When You Die?

LinkedIn offers both memorialization and account closure for deceased members. When a profile is memorialized, it is marked as belonging to a deceased person and locked so that no changes can be made and no new connection requests are received. A person authorized to act on behalf of the estate — such as an executor with proper documentation — can request full account closure, which permanently removes the profile and all associated data (LinkedIn Help Center).

What Documentation Does LinkedIn Require?

For memorialization, anyone can report a member as deceased by providing an obituary link or death certificate. For full account closure, LinkedIn requires the authorized person to provide a death certificate, proof of their authority (such as letters testamentary or a court order), and the deceased member's profile URL. The process generally moves faster than TikTok's or X's, but the LinkedIn help pages can be confusing to navigate during a time of grief. If you're not authorized to act on behalf of the estate, you can only report the death — LinkedIn will then memorialize the profile but will not delete it (Trust & Will).

What Happens to Your YouTube Account When You Die?

YouTube accounts are tied to Google accounts, so the platform's death policies fall under Google's broader deceased user framework. Google will not provide passwords or login details to family members. However, immediate family and legal representatives can submit a request through Google's deceased user support page to either close the account (which deletes the YouTube channel and all videos permanently) or, in certain limited circumstances, obtain some content from the account. Google evaluates these requests on a case-by-case basis and may require a death certificate, proof of relationship, and in some cases a court order (Google Help Center).

How Does Google Inactive Account Manager Affect Your YouTube?

The best way to plan ahead for your YouTube account is through Google's Inactive Account Manager, which applies to your entire Google account (Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive, Google Photos, and more). You set an inactivity period — 3, 6, 9, or 12 months — and if you don't log in for that duration, Google will either notify your designated trusted contacts and give them access to your data, or automatically delete the account, depending on your settings. This is the most powerful pre-death planning tool available for any Google-linked service. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see our dedicated Google Inactive Account Manager guide.

What Happens to Your Snapchat Account When You Die?

Snapchat offers the least support of any major platform for deceased users. There is no memorialization option, no Legacy Contact, and no way to preserve content. The only action available is account deletion. A family member can contact Snapchat support and provide a copy of the death certificate to have the account permanently removed. Snapchat will not provide anyone with access to the deceased user's content — no saved Snaps, no chat histories, nothing (Navy Mutual, 2025).

Given Snapchat's ephemeral design philosophy, this is consistent with the platform's architecture. But for families who hoped to recover meaningful Snaps or conversations with a deceased loved one, it can be a devastating realization. The lesson is straightforward: if your messages on Snapchat matter to your family, they need to be preserved outside the platform. A service like LastWithYou allows you to record and deliver permanent video messages that won't vanish when an algorithm decides they should.

What Happens to Your Pinterest Account When You Die?

Pinterest allows family members to request the deactivation of a deceased user's account by emailing the platform's support team. The request must include the deceased user's account username, proof of death (such as a death certificate), and proof of relationship to the deceased. Pinterest does not offer a memorialization option and does not allow anyone to take over or manage a deceased user's boards. Once deactivated, the account and all its content are removed (The American Legion, 2024).

How Do All These Policies Compare Side by Side?

The following table summarizes the death policies of every major social media platform, so you can see at a glance what your family will face for each account you currently hold.

The pattern is clear: most platforms offer limited options, and the burden of action falls entirely on grieving family members. Only Facebook and Google offer any meaningful pre-death planning tools. The rest require your family to navigate bureaucratic processes during the worst period of their lives.

What Are the Legal Rules Around Accessing a Deceased Person's Social Media?

The legal landscape in the United States is governed primarily by the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), which has been adopted by nearly every state. RUFADAA establishes a three-tier priority system for determining who can access a deceased person's digital accounts. First, the platform's own online tool settings take priority — meaning if you use Facebook's Legacy Contact or Google's Inactive Account Manager, those choices override everything else. Second, instructions in a will, trust, or power of attorney apply. Third, the platform's own terms of service govern as a default (Nolo, 2024).

Does Your Family Automatically Have the Right to Access Your Accounts?

No. Under RUFADAA, your family does not have an automatic right to the content of your electronic communications — including private messages, DMs, and email — unless you specifically grant that access through the platform's own tools or through explicit instructions in your estate planning documents. This means that even if your executor has legal authority over your financial accounts, they may not be able to read your Facebook messages, view your Instagram DMs, or access your email without additional legal action, which may require a court order (Trust & Will). For a thorough look at how U.S. law handles digital assets, our digital legacy planning guide covers RUFADAA in depth.

What Happens If You Do Nothing?

If you make no plan for your social media accounts, several things are likely to happen. Your profiles will continue to exist in an unmanaged state, potentially for years or decades. Facebook may continue to send birthday reminders to your friends. LinkedIn may suggest your profile as a connection. Your photos and posts will remain publicly visible according to their original privacy settings. Your family will eventually discover these accounts one by one, and for each platform they will need to locate the correct help page, gather documentation, submit a request, and wait — a process that can take weeks or months per platform.

A 2022 YouGov survey found that 47% of Americans regret not recording or documenting conversations with someone they were close to who has died (YouGov, 2022). Social media posts are not a substitute for intentional, personal communication. Your Instagram story is not the same as a message written specifically for your daughter. Your TikTok videos are not the same as a recorded farewell for your partner. And as we documented in our research on what bereaved families wish they had done, the regret that lingers longest is not about social media — it's about the things that were never said directly.

How Can You Take Control of Your Social Media Legacy Right Now?

Taking control requires two parallel actions: configuring each platform's built-in tools where they exist, and creating a separate plan for the messages your social media accounts can never deliver.

What Platform Settings Should You Configure Today?

Start with the platforms that actually offer pre-death planning. On Facebook, designate a Legacy Contact and decide whether you want your account memorialized or deleted — you can do this in Settings > Accounts Center > Personal Details > Account Ownership and Control > Memorialization Settings. On Google (which governs YouTube, Gmail, and Google Drive), set up Google Inactive Account Manager at myaccount.google.com/inactive — choose your inactivity timeout period, designate trusted contacts, and decide whether you want data shared or the account deleted. On Apple (for iCloud, iMessage, and Apple Photos), set up a Legacy Contact through Settings > [Your Name] > Sign-In & Security > Legacy Contact. For details on Apple's system, see our Apple Legacy Contact guide.

For platforms without pre-planning tools — TikTok, X, Snapchat, Pinterest — the best approach is to include instructions in your estate plan. List your usernames, state your preference for each account (memorialize, delete, or leave as-is), and ensure your executor or a trusted family member knows these wishes.

What Can't Social Media Platforms Deliver That You Should Plan Separately?

Social media platforms were not designed to deliver personal messages after your death. Facebook's Legacy Contact can pin one post, but that post is public — it is not a private conversation with your child. Instagram can freeze your feed, but it cannot send a video message to your partner on their birthday. YouTube can host your public videos, but it cannot send your daughter a recording that begins with "I made this just for you." These are the messages that matter most, and they require a separate tool designed specifically for this purpose.

This is where intentional afterlife messaging fills the gap that social media cannot. For guidance on how to approach recording these messages, our article on the five things to say before it's too late provides a research-backed framework for what to include.

What Are the Most Common Mistakes Families Make With Deceased Social Media Accounts?

The most common mistake is waiting too long to act. Social media accounts of deceased users can be targeted by hackers, spammers, and identity thieves. An unmanaged Facebook account can be used for fraudulent friend requests. An untouched Instagram account can be hacked and repurposed. An active LinkedIn profile belonging to a dead person can receive recruiter messages and job recommendations — a jarring experience for colleagues who know the person has passed.

What Should Your Family Do in the First 30 Days?

In the first 30 days after a death, the priority actions for social media are to secure accounts (change passwords if access is available), download any content the family wants to preserve, and submit memorialization or deletion requests to each platform. This is significantly easier if the deceased left a list of their accounts and their wishes — something that can be included in a broader emergency preparedness file. Our funeral planning checklist includes social media account management as one of its key action items.

Conclusion

Your social media accounts will outlive you. That is not a hypothetical — it is a near-certainty backed by an Oxford Internet Institute study that predicts the dead will outnumber the living on Facebook by 2070. The question is not whether your profiles will persist after your death, but whether they will persist in the way you would have wanted, and whether your family will have the tools and knowledge to manage them without unnecessary pain.

The good news is that the most impactful steps are simple. Designate a Facebook Legacy Contact. Set up Google Inactive Account Manager. Include your social media wishes in your estate plan. And most importantly, recognize that social media was designed for the living — it is a broadcast tool, not a personal messenger. The words your family will treasure most are not the ones in your public feed. They are the ones you record specifically for the people you love, in your own voice, delivered when it matters most. That part is up to you.