Google Inactive Account Manager: Set It Up and What Happens After Death

Inactive Account Manager is a Google Account setting that lets you decide what happens to your account if you stop using it. You choose how long Google waits, up to 10 trusted contacts to notify, and which data (Gmail, Drive, Photos and others) they can download. If you set nothing, Google can delete a personal account after two years of inactivity, and your family has to go through a request process that, for account content, needs a US court order.

What is Google's Inactive Account Manager?

Google describes it as a way to share parts of your account data or notify someone if you've been inactive for a certain period. Think of it as a set of instructions for your Google data rather than a legal will: it only acts when your account goes quiet, which can happen after a death or serious illness.

It isn't a replacement for a will. It covers Google's products only, and it doesn't hand over your passwords. It sits alongside the rest of your plan, such as an Apple Legacy Contact if you use Apple devices and the guidance in our digital estate planning guide.

How do you set it up?

You set it up at the Inactive Account Manager page in your Google Account (myaccount.google.com/inactive). Google's help page describes these choices:

1. Choose how long Google waits. You tell Google how long your account should be inactive before the plan starts.
2. Pick your trusted contacts. You can select up to 10 people, and Google asks for a phone number for each one. It uses the number only to make sure that only the trusted contact can download your data, in case someone else gets hold of the email.
3. Choose what they get. You can share all your data or only specific types, and different people can receive different data. Google notes that some information can't be shared.
4. Write a message. If you only want to notify someone, they receive an email with a subject line and content that you wrote. Google adds a footer saying you asked it to send the message after you stopped using your account.

You can change your contacts or choices, or turn the plan off, from the same page. Review it once a year and after any change in who you trust, especially a divorce or a falling out.

How does Google decide that an account is inactive?

Google says it looks at several signals: your recent sign-ins, your recent activity in My Activity, your use of Gmail (including the Gmail app on your phone), and Android check-ins. In its separate inactive account policy, it lists activity such as reading or sending an email, using Google Drive, watching a YouTube video, sharing a photo, downloading an app, using Google Search, and using Sign in with Google to sign in to another app.

Activity is counted by account, not by device, so using the account on any phone or computer where you're signed in counts. Under its general inactivity policy, Google emails the account and any recovery email before deleting, so keep your recovery details current. A recovery address you never check won't help.

What do trusted contacts receive?

Contacts hear nothing during setup. After the inactivity period passes, Google emails them. If you chose to share data, the email lists the data types you picked and includes a link to download them. Google verifies the contact by phone number first.

Some things sit outside the plan. It doesn't hand over passwords, and it doesn't carry over accounts with other companies, so a bank login, a domain name or a cryptocurrency wallet needs its own plan. A password manager with emergency access, or a written list kept with your estate papers, fills the gap. Our guide to password management after death compares the options.

What happens to a Google Account if you don't set it up?

Google says it reserves the right to delete a personal Google Account and its data if you're inactive across Google for at least two years. It also reserves the right to delete data in a single product after two years of inactivity in that product. The earliest an account could be deleted under this policy was December 1, 2023.

Before it deletes, Google sends email notifications to the account and to any recovery email. The policy doesn't apply to accounts set up through a work, school or other organization. Google also lists exceptions where an account counts as active despite not being used, such as an ongoing subscription or purchase, a gift card with a balance, or an app with active subscriptions.

If an account is deleted, Gmail goes with it, and the Gmail address can't be reused.

How can a family request access to a Google Account after death?

Google says it can work with immediate family members and representatives to close the account of someone who has died, where appropriate. In certain circumstances it may provide content from the account. It says its primary responsibility is to keep people's information secure and private, and it can't provide passwords or other login details.

Its request page offers three options: close the account, request funds from the account, or obtain data from the account.

For data, Google's form says that if a request is approved, the requester will need a court order issued in the United States, and Google will give them the language for it. The form asks for a government-issued ID, the death certificate and other documents. Documents not in English need a certified, notarized English translation.

Expect this to take time. Because the request involves a court order, an executor or estate attorney is usually the right person to handle it. Our guides on what an executor does and on closing email accounts explain the wider job.

Does a Google plan override what your will says?

It may. Many states have adopted a version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. California's version, for example, says that if you use a provider's online tool to direct who can see your digital assets and the tool lets you change or delete the direction at any time, the tool direction overrides a contrary direction in your will, trust or power of attorney. Whether a given Google setting counts as such a tool is a legal question for an attorney, not something Google's help pages settle. The rules vary by state, so ask an attorney how yours handles it. See also our guide to a digital will.

What to do next

1. Open the Inactive Account Manager page for each Google Account you care about, pick a waiting period and add contacts.
2. Check that your recovery email and phone number are current.
3. If you're handling a loved one's estate, look at Google's deceased-user request page and talk to the executor before closing anything.
4. Write down your other accounts for your executor, and read our guide to Apple Legacy Contact and the death notification checklist.