Cloud Storage Inheritance: iCloud, Drive and OneDrive

For most families, the cloud is where the irreplaceable things live: a decade of photos, scanned documents, letters, financial records. Yet cloud files sit behind accounts that providers deliberately protect from everyone except the owner. Each of the three big providers takes a different stance after death — Apple built a real access tool, Google built an inactivity trigger, and Microsoft requires a court order. This guide maps all three so you know exactly what to set up now and what your family should do later.

Apple: iCloud through a Legacy Contact

Apple Legacy Contact (part of the Digital Legacy program) lets you name up to five people who can request your iCloud data after death. Each contact receives an access key when you add them; after your death they submit that key together with a death certificate at the Digital Legacy website, and once approved they get about three years to view and download your data. What they can access includes iCloud Photos, iCloud Drive files, Mail, Notes, Contacts, Messages stored in iCloud, voice memos and Health data. What they never get: passwords and passkeys in iCloud Keychain, payment cards, Apple Pay data, and purchased media such as movies, music and apps. Setup takes minutes on any Apple device: Settings, your name, Sign-In and Security, then Legacy Contact. The access key is the critical piece — store it somewhere your contact can actually find, and see Apple Legacy Contact setup for the full walkthrough.

Google: Drive and Photos through Inactive Account Manager

Google takes an inactivity-based approach instead of a death-certificate one. In Inactive Account Manager you choose a window of 3, 6, 12 or 18 months, name up to ten trusted contacts, and decide which data each person receives — for example one contact gets Google Drive and Photos, another gets Gmail. When the window passes with no sign-in, Google warns you by phone and recovery email, then emails each contact a download link that expires after about three months. You can also choose to have the account deleted after the window. If you never set up the tool, family can submit a formal request with a death certificate, ID and proof of relationship; Google reviews each request individually and may ask for a court order before releasing content. And note the clock: an account with no activity for about two years may be deleted entirely. Details of the request route are in Google Inactive Account Manager setup.

Microsoft: OneDrive and the court-order route

Microsoft offers no family shortcut for cloud content. Its support page is explicit: OneDrive files and other personal account content are released only after Microsoft is formally served with a valid subpoena or court order in the requesting region, and even then release is discretionary. Two documented exceptions exist: customers in Germany can contact Microsoft support with proof of legal succession (a death certificate, the deceased person ID, and a certificate of inheritance or Erbschein), and customers in China can request access as a close relative with a death certificate, relationship proof such as a hukou or marriage certificate, and the requester ID. Time pressure is real: accounts inactive for a year are frozen and OneDrive data is deleted shortly after, and Microsoft accounts expire after about two years of inactivity. If your family holds the credentials, they can simply sign in and download files or close the account themselves — which is why storing them is the practical fix.

What the tools never hand over

• Passwords, passkeys and payment cards — Apple Keychain content is excluded from every Legacy Contact grant, and Google never shares your passwords or payment methods with trusted contacts
• Purchased media — Movies, music, apps and books you bought are licensed to the account owner, not the family; they cannot be transferred
• The account login itself — Tools deliver data archives or view access, not control — nobody inherits the ability to keep using the dead person account as their own
• Items encrypted beyond the platform — End-to-end encrypted files and password-protected documents stay locked unless the family has those keys separately

Storage that no platform tool covers

Legacy tools exist for the three giants, but your files may also live in Dropbox, Box, a personal Nextcloud, or a work account. Work accounts (Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 through an employer) belong to the organization and are typically disabled on death, so keep personal files out of them. For every provider without a bereavement program, the only route is whoever holds the credentials — which is exactly what a password manager with emergency access or an encrypted legacy vault provides. The email accounts that anchor all of this are covered separately in email inheritance.

Apple, Google and Microsoft at a glance

• Apple (iCloud) — Legacy Contact named in advance; access key plus death certificate; about three years of view and download access; no Keychain passwords or purchased media
• Google (Drive, Photos) — Inactive Account Manager after 3 to 18 months of inactivity; up to ten contacts receive time-limited download links for chosen services; formal request route otherwise
• Microsoft (OneDrive) — Court order or subpoena for content release; Germany and China document-based exceptions; data deleted about a year after accounts go inactive

Build your cloud handover this month

• Step 1: Add an Apple Legacy Contact and store the key — Settings, your name, Sign-In and Security, Legacy Contact. Print the access key or save it with your estate documents, and tell the contact it exists
• Step 2: Turn on Google Inactive Account Manager — At myaccount.google.com/inactive choose a 6 or 12 month window, add two trusted contacts, and include Drive and Photos in the shared data
• Step 3: Decide your Microsoft route — Microsoft has no setup tool, so choose who holds your Microsoft account credentials and write that decision down in your vault or password manager
• Step 4: Export irreplaceable files now — Photos and documents you could not replace should not live only in one cloud; keep a local or second backup, because every cloud account here can be lost
• Step 5: Keep one inventory your family knows about — Record which clouds you use, what each holds, and the handover plan in one place — the first-week checklist for families sequences when each step should happen. A service like TimeWill (时间遗书) holds the account list and credentials in an encrypted vault and releases them to a trusted contact via heartbeat check-in

Disclaimer

This article is informational, not legal advice. Provider policies, access windows and interface labels change over time and vary by region; verify current details in the official Apple, Google and Microsoft support pages, and consult an attorney for estate-planning decisions.