The files your family won't find without a map

Why a “map” and not just a list

A list of assets is a lawyer's document. A map is something your mother, your brother, or your eighteen-year-old nephew could open and understand. The goal of this exercise is the second thing, not the first. If a non-technical person would stop reading your document within two sentences, the document is useless.

Work through the ten categories below. For each one that applies to you, write two or three plain-English sentences in a single document. That document is your map.

1. The primary email account

This is not just another account. It is the single key that resets almost every other password you own. Write down which address this is, where the password lives (ideally in your password manager — see this guide), and whether 2FA recovery codes are stored inside the vault or elsewhere.

2. Photos and videos

Twenty years of family photos usually live in Google Photos, iCloud, or on a NAS in a cupboard. Note where they are, how to log in, and whether they are synced to a physical device or exist only in the cloud. A family without access to the cloud account loses decades of memories overnight.

3. Important documents

Tax returns, insurance policies, property deeds, health records, birth certificates, contracts. Many of these are PDFs in a Downloads folder nobody else will ever open. List the categories, say where they are stored, and mention the folder names so a grieving person doesn't have to guess.

4. Subscriptions and recurring payments

Netflix, Spotify, iCloud storage, domain names, hosting, gym memberships, newspaper subscriptions. Some will need to be cancelled, some kept running (domain names especially — letting a domain lapse can make decades of email addresses permanently unreachable).

5. Social media accounts

Facebook and Instagram both allow you to designate a legacy contact in advance. Apple has a similar “Legacy Contact” feature for iCloud. Google has the Inactive Account Manager. Set these up today — they take three minutes each and they are the cleanest way to hand over those accounts when the time comes.

6. Professional work and unfinished projects

Contracts in progress, client files, source code repositories, design drafts. If you're self-employed, the business does not quietly wind itself down. Leave a note explaining what should be finished, what should be handed to a collaborator, and what can simply be shut down.

7. Hardware wallets and self-custodied assets

This is the category people are the worst at. If you own a hardware wallet — a Ledger, a Trezor, a Coldcard — write down where the device is stored and how to use it. A non-technical heir will not recognise a small USB-shaped device in a drawer, and they will not know what to do with twelve random words on a piece of paper.

Three things to include in the plan:

• Physical location of the device (“in the top drawer of the home office, in the black pouch”)
• The recovery phrase itself, inside an end-to-end encrypted capsule — the 12 or 24 words, in clear, addressed to the heir who should receive them. No paper, no drawer, no metal plate in a closet. Encryption is the whole point: the words are unreadable to anyone except the heir you named, and only once multi-phase verification has run.
• Plain-language instructions inside the same capsule: which software to install, which network (Bitcoin? Ethereum?), how to restore step by step, where to seek help if stuck.

A classic mistake is to write the seed phrase on paper “hidden somewhere safe” and mention the location in the map. Paper can be stolen, burned, soaked, or found too early by the wrong person. The map document itself is the worst place to put the words, because anyone who finds the map also finds the wallet. With an end-to-end encrypted capsule, the map stays generic (“the recovery phrase is in the capsule addressed to you”) and the words themselves live somewhere nobody can read them, not even us, until delivery.

8. Centralised exchange accounts

If you hold assets on Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, or any custodial platform, the process is different from self-custody. Each of these exchanges has a deceased-user procedure, usually requiring a death certificate and proof of relationship. Write down which exchanges you use and what the login email is — the rest is administrative and your family can handle it with paperwork.

9. Pets, plants, and other living things

A reminder that not everything in the digital estate is digital. If you have pets, write a page about their routine, their vet, their food, their quirks. It is often the most-read page in the whole document.

10. The things that matter only to you

A journal nobody knew existed. A folder of unfinished letters. A draft of a novel. These are not logistical, but they are often what people most regret losing. Note where they are and who, if anyone, you'd like to receive them.

How to deliver the map itself

A map you've written and left on your desktop is not a plan. Two people need to be able to find it, and only when the time is right. The simplest setup is:

• The map — a plain document listing locations and instructions — goes into a capsule addressed to a trusted confidant
• Any secret material (master password, recovery phrases, bank PIN) goes into a separate end-to-end encrypted capsule, addressed to whoever should receive it — typed in directly, because the encryption is what keeps it unreadable
• A SafeGuard is named, as a final human check in the worst case
• Verification runs quietly in the background. If you're alive, nothing happens. If you're not, delivery proceeds in the right order.

Final Capsule is built exactly for this: end-to-end encrypted capsules, one for the map, one for each secret, staged delivery, multi-phase verification before anything is released. The content of a capsule is unreadable to anyone who is not its named recipient — and only once the trigger has fired.

Related: How to make sure your passwords survive you · FAQ