Frequently asked questions

It depends entirely on whether anyone can find them. Banks, email, subscriptions and social accounts do not close themselves; each provider has its own bereavement process, and most need proof of death and proof that you are the executor. The hard part is knowing the accounts exist at all. Executor File is the list your executor works from: every account, where the login lives, and what you wanted done with each one. Without a list like that, an executor is left guessing, and accounts quietly renew, lapse or sit open for years.

They should not need your passwords, and this tool never stores them. Your logins stay in your password manager, where they belong; Executor File records where that password manager is and how to reach it, alongside every account it protects. Handing over a list of live passwords is unsafe and usually breaks the provider's terms. What your family actually needs is the map: which accounts exist, where the keys are kept, and the authority to act. That is what the register holds.

Digital estate planning is the work of making sure someone can settle your affairs after you die: the accounts, the assets, the liabilities and the wishes attached to each. A will names who acts; it rarely records what exists or where to look. Executor File is the missing inventory. It is the practical part of your digital legacy, and one you keep yourself: a single encrypted file your family holds, not a subscription that has to outlive you.

While you are alive, nothing is lost: the passphrase lives in your password manager, and if it ever went missing from there, any two of the three printed shares reconstruct it. If the passphrase and two shares are all gone, the file stays sealed forever. There is no reset and no back door; that is the security property working, not failing.

Nothing is lost. The split is 2-of-3, so any two remaining shares still open the file. When a holder dies or a share goes missing, re-key with the rotate script: it issues a new passphrase and fresh shares, and proves the old passphrase dead before declaring success.

A plain spreadsheet is unencrypted, so it either leaks everything or gets locked with a password nobody will have on the day. Executor File keeps the readable simplicity of a flat file and adds sealed encryption, shared keys, validation that rejects credentials, and a printed recovery page. If a spreadsheet is genuinely all you need, use one; it is better than nothing, and nothing is what most executors get.

A hosted vault is a bet that a company outlives you, keeps its terms and keeps its door open. Several well-funded services in exactly this category have closed or changed hands; the record is on the Built to last page. A file your family keeps makes no such bet.

An app is a dependency with a lifespan, and this design refuses dependencies with lifespans. The tool is a set of short scripts you can read in one sitting, and recovery deliberately needs none of them: two standard commands open the file on any Mac or Linux machine.

That an encrypted register exists, where a copy lives, and that the printed Executor Instructions are stored with the will. A solicitor can also be one of the three share holders. Nothing about the design needs their systems to change; the file opens on an ordinary computer.

Nothing. There is no server, no account, no telemetry, no sync. Encryption, splitting and validation all run locally, and the tools work with the network cable unplugged.

Creating the register expects a Mac or Linux machine. Recovering on Windows works and has its own printed sheet, which is honest about the cost: the secret-sharing tool has no trustworthy native Windows build, so the sheet uses Microsoft's built-in WSL feature, which needs administrator rights and one restart.

No. One deeply tested scheme is the point: every printed page, test and instruction assumes 2-of-3, so the executor's page never depends on remembering which variant you chose. The code is MIT licensed; fork it if your situation truly needs a different split.

No. The register records practical guidance: where things are and what you wanted done. The will decides, along with beneficiary designations, ownership rights, provider terms and the law. Take estate-document wording to whoever drafts the will.