Short answer: not while you’re alive, and not the moment something happens to you either. A Legacy Contact only gets into your Myend account after your death has been established through Myend’s Proof of Life system — never on their say-so alone, and never instantly.
What a Legacy Contact actually is
A Legacy Contact is the trusted person — a spouse, adult child, sibling, or close friend — you choose to carry out your wishes after you’re gone. You can name more than one. Setting someone up takes three steps: add them as a contact, mark them as a Legacy Contact, and send the invitation. They accept and get a free Myend account of their own, separate from yours.
A Legacy Contact is not the same thing as a legal executor or financial trustee, though it’s common for one person to hold both roles. Naming someone as a Legacy Contact in Myend doesn’t make anything legally binding on its own — it controls access to your Myend plan.
The three things that have to line up before access opens
Myend won’t hand over access on a single signal. Three factors all have to be true at once:
- Your Legacy Contact has their unique Access Key (given to them when they accepted the invitation).
- They complete email verification — proving it’s really them, not someone who intercepted the key.
- Your Proof of Life check-ins have actually lapsed — see below.
All three together are what unlock access. Any one missing, and the account stays closed to them.
How Proof of Life decides the timing
Proof of Life is Myend’s safeguard against a false alarm. You set up regular check-ins on a schedule that works for you. As long as you respond to them, nothing changes — your Legacy Contacts see nothing and can do nothing with your account.
If a check-in goes unanswered, Myend escalates gradually rather than assuming the worst: gentle reminders come first, and only if those go unanswered too does Myend notify your Legacy Contacts. That escalation — not a single missed check-in — is what eventually triggers the Proof of Life condition your Legacy Contacts need for access. The design is deliberate: nothing is released by accident, and a Legacy Contact can never grant themselves access early just by claiming you’ve died.
Proof of Life monitoring is part of the Complete plan.
What Legacy Contacts can see once access opens
Once all three conditions are met, a Legacy Contact can:
- View your finalized directives (funeral, healthcare, euthanasia, donor, and — on the Complete plan — your Last Will & Testament)
- Read the goodbye messages you left for them and others
- See your contact list
- Access the vault items and shared documents you assigned to them
What they can never do
Even after access opens, a Legacy Contact cannot change your plans or delete anything you’ve written. And while you’re alive, they have no access at all — not to preview, not to check on you, nothing. The account, and everything in it, stays fully private and under your control until Proof of Life actually triggers.
Choosing who to name
Because a Legacy Contact eventually sees deeply personal information — your goodbye messages, your directives, your vault — choose someone you trust completely. Most people choose a spouse, an adult child, a sibling, or a close friend. You can name more than one Legacy Contact if you’d like extra coverage in case one person is hard to reach when it matters.