What Happens to Your Apple ID and iCloud Photos After Death?

Apple offers a Legacy Contact feature that lets you name someone in advance who can access certain data in your iCloud account after you die — including photos, videos, messages, notes, files, and device backups.

To set it up: Settings > [your name] > Password & Security > Legacy Contact. You can add more than one person, and each gets an access key to save (a code, not tied to a password).

Without a Legacy Contact, a family member typically needs to submit a request along with a death certificate and, in many cases, additional legal documentation — and Apple’s process can be slower and more limited without one.

What a Legacy Contact generally can’t get: licensed content like purchased movies, music, or books tied to your Apple ID, and certain end-to-end encrypted data categoriesmay have specific limits even for a Legacy Contact.

Setting this up takes a few minutes and is one of the highest-leverage things you can do if photos and messages matter to your family.