Facebook memorialized account

Memorializing a Facebook account adds "Remembering" before the person's name, keeps their posts visible to the audience they were shared with, and takes the profile out of birthday reminders, ads, and People You May Know.

It also locks the account. In Meta's words: "No one can log into a memorialized account."

That lock is the point. Meta says memorialization "protects against attempted logins and fraudulent activity", a dormant, un-memorialized account is the one that gets hijacked. Memorializing promptly is the security step, not just the sentimental one.

Do this while you are alive: name a legacy contact

Facebook lets you name someone now to look after your profile if it is memorialized later. You must be 18 or older, and it applies only to your main profile.

The path: Settings & privacy → Settings → Accounts Center → Account ownership and control → Memorialization, then choose a friend and decide whether they may download a copy of what you shared.

The same menu holds a second option worth knowing about: Delete after death, which permanently deletes your account when you die instead of memorializing it. Almost nobody knows this exists.

A legacy contact can manage the memorialized account, write a pinned post, respond to new friend requests, update the profile and cover photo, download a copy of what you shared if you enabled that, and delete the account entirely.

A legacy contact cannot log in, remove or edit past posts, read messages, or remove friends.

Why this outranks your will

This is the part with real legal weight.

Nearly every state has adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. Its fourth section says that where a provider offers an online tool and that tool lets you change your instruction at any time, the tool wins:

If the online tool allows the user to modify or delete a direction at all times, a direction regarding disclosure using an online tool overrides a contrary direction by the user in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record.

Facebook's legacy contact setting is such a tool. So is Google's Inactive Account Manager. Ten seconds in an app menu outranks the will you paid an attorney to draft.

Meta's own rule follows from this: if a legacy contact exists, only the legacy contact can request removal of the profile. Family members cannot override them. A sibling named as legacy contact beats an executor named in the will.

Massachusetts is a notable exception among the states, check your own if this matters to you.

Why nobody gets the messages

Families reasonably want the private messages, and almost nobody gets them.

Federal law bars a provider from divulging the contents of communications. Meta will "in rare cases, consider requests for additional account information or content" from an authorized representative, and that route requires a court order referencing disclosure of electronic communications. Meta is blunt that submitting the paperwork "doesn't guarantee that we'll be able to provide you with the content," and if refused, "we will not be able to share further details about the account or discuss our decision."

The uniform act draws the line between the contents of messages, which require the person's consent or a court order, and the catalogue, who they corresponded with, and when, which an executor can more readily obtain. Useful for finding accounts and institutions. It is not the conversation.

After a death: the two forms

To memorialize. Use Meta's memorialization request form. You do not need to be next of kin, friends and family may file, and proof of death can be an obituary, death certificate, or memorial card. One practical warning: the form sits behind a login wall, so you must be signed in to your own Facebook account to open it. That is the usual reason people conclude it is broken.

Meta suggests reaching out to the person's family before requesting memorialization. Worth doing.

To delete permanently. A verified immediate family member or executor can request deletion. The fastest route is a scan of the death certificate; otherwise Meta wants proof of authority, a power of attorney, will, estate letter, or a birth certificate where the person was a minor, plus proof of death.

The single biggest cause of rejection: "The information on the documentation you provide must match the information on your loved one's account." A nickname or maiden name on the profile against a legal name on the certificate will stop it.

What goes wrong

It gets memorialized by mistake, and reversing it is hard. Anyone can file a request, and living people do get memorialized. Meta has a dedicated remedy form for accounts "we've mistakenly memorialized," which requires a photo of yourself holding government-issued ID. Expect an identity review, not a quick fix.

The photos are not as recoverable as people assume. A legacy contact's download includes photos and videos you uploaded, wall posts, profile info, events, and your friends list. It excludes messages entirely, and it excludes photos that were auto-synced but never posted. It also only works if you turned the download permission on when naming them, a legacy contact named without it gets nothing to save.

Cloning is a separate problem. Memorialization locks the real profile, but scammers copy public photos into a brand-new account. That needs its own report.

Instagram is stricter and has no legacy contact. Meta says memorialized Instagram accounts "can't be changed in any way," including likes, followers, tags, posts and comments. There is nothing to set up in advance. WhatsApp has no memorialization process at all, accounts are generally deleted after 365 days of inactivity, and because messages are end-to-end encrypted, the only copy that survives is on the person's own device.

The five minutes worth spending

• Set a Facebook legacy contact, and turn on the download permission.
• Or choose Delete after death, if that is what you want.
• Do the same for Google's Inactive Account Manager and Apple's Legacy Contact, Apple's requires you to store an access key somewhere your family will find it.
• Write down which of these you set, because the settings are invisible to everyone else until they are needed.
• Do not rely on your will for any of this. The setting beats it.

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The 72-Hour File has a digital section for recording which legacy contacts and inactive-account settings you configured, and where an access key is kept, without writing passwords in a binder. See what is inside