Most UK adults have a will, or know they should. Far fewer have thought about their digital legacy: the accounts, files, messages, subscriptions, and instructions they leave behind. This guide is a short map of where to start.
What your will does, and does not, cover
Your will is the legal instrument that deals with your assets and names your executors. It is essential. It is also limited:
- It does not list your online accounts. - It does not say who should receive your photographs. - It does not carry the personal messages you most want the people you love to keep. - It does not, in practice, get read out loud at the right moment to the right person.
This is the gap digital legacy planning fills.
A short UK checklist
1. Make a will. If you have not, do this first. STEP-qualified solicitors and several reputable UK services can help. 2. Write a letter of wishes. A short informal document held with your will, covering funeral preferences, executor guidance, and personal notes. See our letter of wishes template. 3. Organise your passwords. A reputable password manager with a trusted emergency contact is the cleanest answer. Avoid leaving passwords in plain text in a notebook anyone can find. 4. Decide what happens to each major account. Email, banking, social media, photo storage, subscriptions. Memorialise, close, or hand over. 5. Choose who hears what, when. This is the part most people skip, and the part that matters most. Decide who you want to hear from you personally after you are gone, and what you want them to hear.
Where Y.O.D.O. fits
Y.O.D.O. is a UK digital legacy service for steps 4 and 5 above. It is not a will and not a password manager. It holds:
- Sealed messages, in text, voice, or video, each addressed to a named Recipient, released only after a passing has been verified. - Instructions for the practical handover, alongside the personal detail. - Special Delegate notices, so the professionals you nominated, such as your solicitor, notary, accountant, employer, funeral director, banker, or a befriending charity, are quietly contacted once a passing has been verified.
Why active beats passive
Most digital legacy services sit silent until someone remembers to log in and report a passing. In grief, that often never happens. The messages people wrote with care are never delivered.
Y.O.D.O. works the other way around. Scheduled check-ins create a quiet signal of life. If that signal goes missing, Y.O.D.O. reaches out to your Delegates and prompts them to act, rather than waiting for them to think of it on their own. That single shift dramatically increases the chance that the words you wrote actually reach the people you wrote them for.
Verification is still required. A Delegate must report the passing and complete Persona identity verification, a death certificate must be uploaded within 30 days, and a 72-hour dispute window must close before any message is released. You can pause or cancel at any point.
Where to start today
If you have a will, start with the letter of wishes. If you have both, join the Y.O.D.O. waiting list for the personal handover that neither document was built to carry.