How to Memorialize Someone's Facebook Account

Facebook has more than 1 billion users, but what happens to a person’s Facebook page when they die?  What if your loved one -- like the majority of young social media users -- never got around to getting their social media affairs in order?  If one of your Facebook friends has passed away and their account is still active, here are your options.

LEGACY CONTACTS

A legacy contact is someone you choose to look after your account if it's memorialized. Once your account is memorialized, your legacy contact will have the option to do things like: Write a pinned post for your profile (example: to share a final message on your behalf or provide information about a memorial service), respond to new friend requests, and update the person’s profile picture and cover photo.  They can also, with the deceased user’s permission, download an archive of the user’s photos, Timeline photos and profile information.

Legacy contacts are named by the account holder prior to their death -- a family member or a friend who will be able to manage the person's memorialized account when they die.

Legacy contacts cannot log into the deceased user's account and see any of their private information, such as Facebook messages. They also cannot remove the user's past posts, photos or friends.

To add a legacy contact:

1. Click in the top right of Facebook and select Settings.
2. Click Manage Account.
3. Type in a friend's name and click Add.
4. After choosing your legacy contact, you have the option to send a message to that person.  If you want to let your friend know they’re now your legacy contact, review the notification message your contact will receive, make any desired changes, and then click Send – OR – click Not Now if you'd prefer they not know about your decision. You'll need to eventually tell them, of course, because they will need to ask Facebook to memorialize your account when you die.
   

Once you've chosen a legacy contact, you'll see the option to allow them to download a copy of your Facebook account under Data Archive Permission. To allow your legacy contact to do this, click the checkbox and click Close.

If you do not choose a legacy contact before you die, nobody will be able to manage your Facebook account -- but they can still memorialize it.

MEMORIALIZED ACCOUNTS

Memorialized accounts are a place for friends and family to gather and share memories after a person has passed away. A memorialized account will have the word "Remembering" in front of the person's name, and will not show up in Facebook ads, "People You May Know," or send out reminders on the person's birthday. Memorialized accounts cannot be logged into, so memorializing someone's account also prevents the account from getting hacked.

MEMORIALIZING SOMEONE'S FACEBOOK ACCOUNT

If your friend has passed away without setting up a legacy contact, you can still request that Facebook memorialize their account using this form. You will need to provide the person's name, approximate date of death, and optional proof of death (such as a link to an obituary or upload a death certificate).

If you're an immediate family member, you can request that the account be deleted instead of memorialized. To do this, use Facebook's Special Request for Deceased Person's Account form. You will need to provide the deceased person's full name, email address, date of death and the URL of their Timeline. You will also need to provide proof that you are an immediate family member -- you can do this with a birth certificate or a death certificate.

Here are some of the key features of memorialized accounts:

• No one can log into a memorialized account and no new friends can be accepted.
• Depending on the privacy settings of the person’s account, friends can share memories on the memorialized timeline.
• Anyone can send private messages to the deceased person.
• Content your loved one shared, such as photos or posts, remains on Facebook and is visible to the audience it was shared with.
• Memorialized timelines don’t appear in ‘People You May’ Know and other suggestions.

If your loved one did not have Facebook, you can create a page specifically to remember them.

To create a page:

1. Go to facebook.com/pages/create.
2. Choose a Page category (cause or community).
3. Choose a subcategory and enter the required information.
4. Check the box next to I agree to Facebook Pages Terms.
5. Click Get Started.