Password managers hold the keys. Your executor needs the map.
A password manager is the single best thing you can set up for your executor, and it is not enough on its own. It holds the keys: every login, in one place, behind one strong secret. What it does not hold is the map: what exists, what matters, what to do about each thing, and in what order. This article covers what the major emergency-access schemes actually hand over, and where each one stops.
What each scheme does
1Password relies on the Emergency Kit: a printed sheet with your account details and Secret Key, plus your master password written in by hand. Whoever holds a complete kit can sign in as you. Families on a shared plan can also recover each other’s accounts if recovery is set up in advance. The scheme is simple and strong, and it is all-or-nothing: a kit grants everything, immediately. 1Password’s plans are here.
Bitwarden has proper emergency access on paid plans: you name a trusted contact in advance, and after a waiting period you control, they can either view or take over your vault. The waiting period is the feature: you can veto a request while alive. Bitwarden’s free tier is genuinely useful, and free is a fine reason to choose it.
Apple offers Legacy Contact. You name someone; on your death they use their access key plus your death certificate to request your iCloud data. Keychain passwords and licensed media are not included, which surprises people: the passwords themselves mostly do not transfer through this route.
Google offers the Inactive Account Manager. It is a timer, not a death process: after three to eighteen months of inactivity, the people you chose receive the data you selected. Setting it also stops Google’s inactive-account deletion from quietly erasing your email while the estate is still being settled.
Where they all stop
Every scheme above answers one question: who gets in. None answers the questions your executor actually starts with:
- What accounts exist, including ones with no login your password manager ever saw: pensions from old employers, paper-statement accounts, the storage unit, the safe deposit box.
- Which of them matter, and which are urgent. A crypto wallet and a gym membership do not belong in the same queue.
- What you wanted done: closed, transferred, preserved, or left for a beneficiary.
- Who to talk to: the solicitor, the accountant, the business partner.
That information is a register, not a credential, and it should not live inside the vault it describes. If the vault is unreachable, the map is gone too.
Keys and map together
The setup that works is layered: a password manager for every credential, its emergency scheme configured and consistent with the will, and a separate register of what exists and what you want done. The register needs no passwords in it, precisely because the password manager exists.
That register is what Executor File is: a free, open-source encrypted file listing every account, asset and liability with your instructions, plus one printed page telling your executor how to open it. It deliberately stores no credentials and actively rejects them. The keys stay in the password manager. The map is the file your family keeps.