Facebook handles a death in one of two ways: the account is memorialized (the default, once Facebook learns of the death) or it is permanently deleted, if the person chose that in advance. There is no third option, and nobody, family included, can ever log in. Everything else follows from which of those two paths applies: what a memorialized profile shows, who looks after it, which documents Facebook asks families for. This guide walks through both as they work in 2026, including the settings path as it looks mid-transition to Meta Accounts, and the parts most older guides get wrong.
Facebook is one account of many. For the full picture, including Google, Apple, and the legal rules that decide who can access what, start with what happens to your online accounts when you die.
The two paths: memorialized or deleted
While you are alive, Facebook offers exactly two choices for what happens to your account after your death: name a legacy contact to look after a memorialized version of your profile, or have the account permanently deleted once Facebook receives proof that you died.
If you never choose, memorialization is the default. Facebook’s own wording is precise: “only your main profile will be memorialised if we become aware of your passing.” Two things sit inside that sentence. First, nothing happens until Facebook becomes aware: a death Facebook is never told about changes nothing at all. Second, the promise covers your main profile only; the legacy-contact system does not extend to any additional Facebook profiles you run.
Deletion, if you chose it, is total. Once Facebook receives proof of death, “all of your messages, photos, posts, comments, reactions and info will be immediately and permanently removed”, and the deletion takes your additional profiles down along with your main one.
One more rule worth knowing: Facebook does not let minors choose a legacy contact, and the age at which that restriction lifts follows the age of majority, which varies by region.
What a memorialized profile looks like
The visible change is one word: “Remembering” appears next to the person’s name. Depending on the account’s privacy settings, friends can share memories on the memorialized timeline, and everything the person shared while alive stays visible to the audience it was originally shared with: public posts stay public, friends-only posts stay with friends.
The invisible changes matter just as much. A memorialized profile stops appearing in People You May Know suggestions, in ads, and in birthday reminders: the small automated appearances that would otherwise keep resurfacing the account in front of people who knew them.
What memorialization is not: access. No one can log in to a memorialized account. And if no legacy contact was ever named, no one can change the profile either. It is frozen exactly as it was left. Frozen is literal: without a legacy contact there is nobody who can update the profile picture, answer a new friend request, or place a pinned post with service information. The profile keeps whatever state it had on the last day it was touched.
Two knock-on effects most guides skip, both from Facebook’s own help pages:
- Pages with a single admin are removed. If the person was the only admin of a Facebook Page (a small business, a club, a community project), the Page comes down entirely once a valid memorialization request is received.
- Groups with a single admin are paused. A Group whose only admin has died is paused rather than removed when the profile is memorialized.
If you run a Page or a Group alone, the fix costs nothing and takes minutes: add a second admin while you can.
Legacy contacts: what they can do, and what they can’t
A legacy contact is the person you choose to look after your memorialized main profile. They must be one of your Facebook friends, and you can change your choice at any time.
Once the profile is memorialized, your legacy contact can:
- Manage the memorialized profile.
- Write a pinned post for it (memorial-service information, for example).
- Respond to new friend requests.
- Update the profile picture and cover photo.
- Download a copy of what you shared on Facebook, but only if you turned that permission on when you set them up.
- Delete the memorialized account entirely, at any time.
And, just as deliberately, your legacy contact cannot:
- Log in to the account.
- Remove or edit anything you posted in the past.
- Read your messages.
- Remove any of your friends.
The second list is the one to sit with. Naming a legacy contact does not hand anyone your private conversations, and it does not let anyone rewrite your history. The role is caretaker of a memorial, not successor to the account. If reading the messages is what a family actually wants, no setting on Facebook grants it; the closest thing is the narrow court-order route covered below. It also means a legacy contact carries no blame for the limits families sometimes resent: the sealed messages and the untouchable history are Facebook’s design, not the contact’s choice.
How to set your preference (2026)
First, the caveat that makes every 2026 walkthrough approximate: Facebook is mid-transition to Meta Accounts. Meta says it is “gradually updating people to Meta Accounts,” so you may see either Accounts Centre or the newer Meta Account settings, and its help pages add that not everyone can access this setting in Accounts Centre at this time. If your screens don’t match the steps below, search Facebook’s Help Center for memorialization settings rather than concluding the option is gone.
Older walkthroughs are a separate trap. Many articles still point to a Memorialization Settings entry in the old Settings menu, a path Facebook has since retired. If a guide names that path, it predates the transition.
On the current layout, the path is:
- Select your profile photo, then Settings and privacy, then Settings.
- Open Accounts Centre.
- Go to Profiles and personal details, then Account ownership and control.
- Select Memorialisation (Facebook spells it the British way).
- Choose Memorialise account, which requires selecting a legacy contact, or Delete after death.
Whichever you choose, the setting only works if Facebook eventually learns of your death, so tell the people close to you what you picked, and where you wrote it down. A choice nobody knows exists is a choice nobody can act on.
For families: requesting memorialization
You do not need to be the legacy contact, or any particular relative, to tell Facebook that someone died. Facebook’s stated policy: “It’s our policy to memorialise an account for someone who has passed away if a valid request is received.” Anyone can file that request.
Memorialization is also the moment the knock-on effects land: a valid request is what removes a Page the person administered alone, and pauses their sole-admin Groups.
What a memorialization request does not do is grant the requester anything. The profile is preserved, not transferred. If the person named a legacy contact, that contact’s limited role begins; if not, the profile freezes as it stands.
Requesting deletion: the exact documents
Having a deceased person’s account removed entirely is a separate request with a higher bar: it must come from an immediate family member or the executor of the estate.
The fastest path is a scan or photo of the death certificate. With that, nothing else is required.
Without a death certificate, Facebook asks for two documents: one proving your authority to act, one proving the death.
Proof of authority, any one of:
- Power of attorney
- Birth certificate, for a deceased minor
- Last will and testament
- Estate letter
Proof of death, any one of:
- Obituary
- Memorial card
Two practical notes from Facebook’s own instructions: the details on your documents must match the information on the account, and you should cover any personal data the request doesn’t need (a Social Security number on a will, for example) before you send it.
Note the asymmetry with the setting from earlier. If you choose Delete after death on your own account, your family only has to show Facebook that you died. The authority question is already answered, because the instruction is yours. The document lists above exist for accounts where the person never made a choice.
Can you get into the account or read the messages?
No. This is the wall families run into, and it has no door. Facebook states that “we can’t provide login information for someone else’s account,” and that logging in to another person’s account is always against Meta’s policies: even for a spouse, even with the password, even as executor. Memorialization and deletion are the only standard outcomes, and neither involves anyone getting in.
For the content itself, messages included, there is one narrow exception. “In rare cases,” Facebook says, it will consider requests for additional account information or content. The requirements are steep: proof that you are an authorized representative, such as a family member, plus a court order. Two caveats come with that. Facebook does not promise to comply even then (the decision is discretionary), and filing the request itself triggers memorialization of the account.
If what a family really wants is the photos, the planning answer sits back in the legacy-contact settings: the download permission, turned on in advance, lets your legacy contact save a copy of what you shared. Messages stay off-limits either way.
If nobody does anything
Nothing happens. An account Facebook is never told about stays an ordinary, active-looking profile, indefinitely. Facebook publishes no policy of deleting accounts for inactivity, so an untouched profile does not quietly expire. It waits, looking exactly as it did, until Facebook is made aware of the death, at which point the path the person chose, or the memorialization default, finally applies. For a family that isn’t ready to decide anything, that is worth knowing: nothing happens until someone files the report, and there is no deadline for filing it.
That makes Facebook unusual among the big platforms. Google, by contrast, reserves the right to delete an account that has been inactive for at least two years, a very different philosophy, covered alongside Apple’s rules in the full online-accounts guide linked above.
Frequently asked questions
Can I log into my late relative’s Facebook account?
No. Facebook will not provide login information for someone else’s account, and Meta’s policies prohibit logging in to another person’s account in all circumstances, including for family, and including with a password the person left behind. The available routes are memorialization, deletion, or the rare court-order request for content.
How do I become someone’s legacy contact?
You can’t volunteer for the role or request it. The account owner has to choose you, while alive, from among their Facebook friends, in their memorialization settings. They can change that choice at any time. If someone wants you to look after their profile, the setup happens on their side. Your part begins only after the profile is memorialized.
Can a legacy contact delete the account?
Yes. Deleting the memorialized account, at any time, is one of the powers a legacy contact holds. What a legacy contact can never do is log in, read messages, edit or remove past posts, or remove friends.
What happens to Messenger messages?
Nobody gets to read them. Messages are not part of what a legacy contact manages (the role explicitly excludes reading messages), and no one can log in to a memorialized account. If the person chose deletion in advance, messages are permanently removed with everything else. The only path Facebook describes for content is the court-order request, which is rare, discretionary, and itself triggers memorialization.
Does Facebook delete inactive accounts?
No. Facebook has no inactivity-deletion policy: an account left alone simply remains a normal profile until Facebook learns of the death. That differs from Google, which reserves the right to delete accounts inactive for at least two years.
Facebook’s tools cover Facebook. Your family will face this same puzzle again for every account you hold, each platform with its own rules, forms, and documents. A Myend plan covers the whole list in one place: your Vault holds the documents your family will be asked to produce, and Myend’s Legacy Contact role names the person who gets access to that record when the time comes (your whole list, not just one platform), a practical role, distinct from the legal executor of your estate. Both are free to start, as part of an end-of-life plan where decisions like memorialize-or-delete are written down where your family will actually find them.
