Google Inactive Account Manager: How to Set Up Your Google Digital Will

2026-02-17

Google knows more about you than your family does. Your Gmail holds years of conversations, receipts, and medical records. Google Drive stores tax returns, legal documents, and work files. Google Photos is the primary photo album for millions of families — decades of memories that exist nowhere else.

When someone dies or becomes permanently incapacitated, all of this data sits locked behind a password. Google won't hand it over to the next of kin without a legal battle. But Google built a tool that solves this problem — and almost nobody uses it.

It's called the Inactive Account Manager, and setting it up takes about 10 minutes. It is, without exaggeration, the single most important digital legacy action most people can take.

What the Inactive Account Manager does

The Inactive Account Manager is essentially a "dead man's switch" for your Google account. You configure it while you're alive, and it activates automatically when your account goes inactive for a period you choose.

Here's what it lets you do:

Choose a timeout period. You select how long your account must be inactive before the plan triggers: 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, or 18 months. "Inactive" means no sign-in, no app activity — no interaction with any Google service whatsoever.
Add trusted contacts. You designate up to 10 people who will be notified when the timeout is reached. You can write a personal message that each contact will receive — essentially a letter from beyond.
Share your data. For each trusted contact, you choose which Google services to share: Gmail, Drive, Photos, YouTube, Calendar, Contacts, and more. When the plan triggers, Google packages up the selected data and sends download links to each contact.
Optionally delete everything. You can instruct Google to delete the entire account after notifying your contacts — giving them time to download what they need before it's gone.

Why this matters more than a password in a drawer

You might think: "I'll just leave my Google password in my will." This approach has three critical problems.

Wills are public. Once probated, a will becomes a public document. Your Google password — and access to every email, photo, and file — would be accessible to anyone who requests the probate file.

Passwords change. If you update your password after writing the will (which you should, regularly), the will contains a useless credential. Updating a will costs money and requires an attorney.

Terms of service override the will. Under RUFADAA (the law governing digital assets in most US states), a user's own platform settings legally override instructions in a will. So if you set up the Inactive Account Manager, Google will follow your settings, not whatever your executor tries to do with a password. This is actually a good thing — it puts you in control.

The Inactive Account Manager is Google's own mechanism for authorized data transfer. It's legal, it's secure, and it doesn't require anyone to know your password.

Step-by-step setup guide

Step 1: Access the Inactive Account Manager page

Go to myaccount.google.com/inactive while signed in to the Google account you want to configure. You can also find it by navigating to Google Account > Data & privacy > Make a plan for your digital legacy.

Step 2: Click "Start"

Google will walk you through the setup wizard. The first screen explains what the tool does. Click Start to begin configuration.

Step 3: Set the timeout period

Choose how long your account must be inactive before the plan triggers:

3 months — aggressive; good if you check Gmail daily and want the fastest possible response
6 months — a balanced default for most people
12 months — conservative; appropriate if you sometimes take long breaks from email
18 months — very conservative; only if you frequently go months without checking Google

Recommendation: For most people, 6 months is the right choice. It's long enough to avoid false triggers from a vacation or a digital detox, but short enough that your data is still intact and useful when your contacts are notified.

Step 4: Add your mobile number for alerts

Google will attempt to contact you before doing anything. They'll send texts and emails warning that your account is about to be marked inactive. This is a safety net — if you're alive and just forgot to log in, you can abort the process by simply signing in.

Add your mobile phone number so Google can text you warnings before the plan triggers.

Step 5: Add trusted contacts

Click Add person to designate who should be notified. For each contact:

Enter their email address and phone number
Choose which Google services to share with them (you can share different data with different people)
Write a personal message they'll receive when the plan activates

Who should you add? Your spouse or partner, your adult children, your executor — anyone who would need access to your data in an emergency. You can add up to 10 contacts.

What data should you share? At minimum:

Gmail — contains account notifications, financial records, and personal correspondence
Google Drive — tax documents, legal files, personal records
Google Photos — irreplaceable family memories
Contacts — so your family can notify people in your address book

You may also want to share Calendar (to identify upcoming commitments), YouTube (if you have a channel), and Maps (saved places, reviews).

Step 6: Decide whether to delete the account

The final option: should Google delete everything after your contacts have been notified?

If you choose yes, Google will wait three months after notifying your contacts before deleting the account. This gives them time to download the data.

If you choose no, the account remains in its current state indefinitely — your contacts receive the data, but the account itself stays active (with emails still arriving, subscriptions still active, etc.).

Recommendation: Choose yes (delete after notification). Leaving an unmonitored account open indefinitely is a security risk. Your contacts will have three months to download everything they need.

Step 7: Review and confirm

Google shows a summary of your plan. Review it, then click Confirm.

That's it. The Inactive Account Manager is now active. You don't need to do anything else unless you want to update your contacts or timeout settings later.

Setting this up for your parents

The setup process above assumes you're configuring your own account. If you're an adult child trying to set this up for a parent, the dynamics are different — and often more challenging.

The "Tech Support" approach

The most effective way to bring this up with a reluctant parent is to embed it in a broader tech support session. Offer to help them with something they actually want — cleaning up their inbox, organizing their photos, resetting a forgotten password — and then mention the Inactive Account Manager as part of the "while we're at it" list.

The framing matters. "Let's set up your Google account so I can help you if something goes wrong" lands much better than "Let's plan what happens to your email when you die."

You need their physical presence

The Inactive Account Manager must be set up while logged in to their Google account, on their device, with their phone for verification. You cannot set this up remotely or on their behalf (without their login credentials, which defeats the purpose).

If your parent lives far away, consider setting this up during your next visit. It takes 10 minutes and can be done over a cup of coffee.

Make yourself a trusted contact

When adding contacts, make sure you (or another responsible family member) are listed. Encourage your parent to share Gmail, Drive, and Photos at minimum.

Document it

After setting it up, record in your family's digital asset inventory that the Inactive Account Manager has been configured, who the trusted contacts are, and what timeout period was selected. This ensures the rest of the family knows the plan exists.

What the Inactive Account Manager doesn't cover

The Inactive Account Manager is powerful, but it has limits:

It doesn't give anyone your password. Your trusted contacts receive a copy of your data — not access to the live account. They can't log in as you, read ongoing emails, or manage the account. They get a downloadable archive.

It doesn't cover non-Google accounts. Your bank, Apple ID, Facebook, subscriptions, and every other service require their own legacy arrangements. Google's tool only handles Google products.

It doesn't handle 2FA cascades. If your Google account is the recovery email for other services (which it often is), those services lose their recovery path when the Google account goes inactive. This is why documenting all accounts — not just Google — is essential.

It doesn't kick in instantly. Even with a 3-month timeout, your family won't have access to the data for at least three months after you stop using the account. During that time, emails keep arriving, subscriptions keep charging, and the account remains vulnerable.

The bigger picture

Google's Inactive Account Manager is the best platform-level legacy tool available, and it should be step one of any digital estate plan. But it's only step one.

A complete plan includes an inventory of all digital accounts (not just Google), documentation of device PINs and 2FA methods, instructions for non-Google platforms (Apple Legacy Contact, Facebook Legacy Contact), and a record of the account holder's wishes for each service.

If you want a structured system that covers all of this — Google, Apple, Facebook, financial accounts, subscriptions, devices, and the conversation scripts to get a reluctant parent on board — the Digital Legacy Kit walks you through the entire process in a single weekend.