Plan ahead
How to Set Up an Apple Legacy Contact
Founder of Fort Legacy
Published: 2026-10-10
Choose a trusted person in your Apple Account's Legacy Contact settings, give them the access key and check that they can find it. A note in your will or workbook does not configure the Apple setting.
Choose someone who can carry out the task
Ask the person before naming them. Explain whether your priority is preserving photos, retrieving family documents or arranging eventual account closure. They do not need to be the most technical person in the family, but they should be willing to follow the provider's process and handle private material carefully.
Apple allows a Legacy Contact who does not have an Apple device or Apple Account. Think about how that person will store the key and whom they would ask for help. Do not choose solely because someone already knows your device passcode.
The provider role is different from the person administering your estate. Your wider instructions should make clear who coordinates decisions and how disagreements about private files should be handled.
Add the contact in your Apple settings
Apple's current instructions on iPhone or iPad use Settings, your name, Sign-In & Security, then Legacy Contact. Choose Add Legacy Contact and follow the prompts to select the person and share the key. On a Mac, use the corresponding Apple Account settings. Check Apple's linked instructions if your menus differ.
The feature has account, age, two-factor authentication and software requirements. If it is unavailable, review the official eligibility information rather than selecting an unrelated recovery setting. A recovery contact and a Legacy Contact are not interchangeable.
Complete this while you are managing your own account. A relative should not try to add themselves after your death by impersonating you or bypassing a locked device.
Make sure the access key reaches them
Treat the access key as sensitive. Do not place it in an article comment, public memorial or ordinary family group chat. A printed copy should be protected from casual access while remaining findable by the intended person.
Do not test the plan by starting a death-related access request while you are alive. A useful test is a conversation: can the contact locate the key and identify Apple's official request route without needing your password?
- Use the supported sharing method, or print the key for secure storage.
- Ask the contact to confirm that they received it and know where it is stored.
- Record the key's location in your estate instructions, not the key itself in a widely shared worksheet.
- Keep a dated note of the contact you selected and who coordinates your broader digital plan.
Explain what this setting does and does not do
After death, the contact uses the key and required evidence to ask Apple for eligible account data. Apple's scope excludes certain information, including Keychain passwords and passkeys and purchased media. Consult the official list before assuming a particular item will be supplied.
The setting does not unlock an iPhone's screen passcode, give someone banking authority or transfer every subscription. Plan separately for physical devices, family billing and information held outside the Apple Account.
If you appoint more than one contact, understand Apple's warning that any one may act, including requesting deletion. Discuss your wishes with them together so one person's action does not surprise another who is still preserving files.
Give the contact a usable handover
Your instructions can be short: identify the important photo library and documents, say what may be shared privately, explain what should stay confidential and name the estate coordinator. Keep passwords and recovery codes in a suitable secure system, outside an ordinary workbook.
List other accounts separately. Appointing an Apple Legacy Contact does not configure Facebook's legacy settings or Google's Inactive Account Manager. Link your instructions to each provider-specific decision rather than calling one person a universal digital executor and assuming that settles access.
Include a fallback for someone who cannot act. That may mean reviewing the nominated contact, explaining where an existing backup is held or identifying who can ask the provider about the available documents.
Review after a device or family change
Record the date of your review. A clear, modest plan that someone can find is more useful than a large document that no longer matches your accounts.
- Confirm that the contact is still willing and reachable.
- Check the setting and key location after changing Apple Accounts or reorganizing estate documents.
- Review your wishes after a family change or a new important photo library.
- If you remove or replace a contact, tell the people affected and remove obsolete instructions from your current plan.