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Choose what happens to your Google account when you die (or simply stop using it)

Have you given any thought to what will happen to your Google account when you die, or when you simply forget to use it for an extended period of time? Google's Inactive Account Manager helps you plan for the future.

Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Senior Contributing Editor May 22, 2019 at 8:58 a.m. PT

Death and taxes.

These are two certainties of life, and Google has a tool to help you decide what happens to your account when you do shuffle off this mortal coil (or simply forget about your account and stop using it for an extended period of time, which is something that some people do).

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The tool you need to use to help you plan for the future today is Google's Inactive Account Manager.

To activate this feature you need to figure out the following:

How long should Google wait before considering your account inactive?
Cellphone and email addresses for Google to contact you on before the account is marked as inactive
Names of people to contact (up to 10, but you can choose none) if you account becomes inactive
Set up an autoreply to respond to messages received after the account is inactive (for Gmail users)
Choose if you want your account deleted after it is marked as inactive

And you're done!

A death is itself traumatic enough, and generates much painful work for loved ones left behind, so doing this today can help to make things a little easier during an otherwise already difficult time.

What do you have planned for your Google account when you die? Do you have plans in place for other aspects of your digital life? Let me know!