Last
year, Google launched Inactive Account Manager (bit.ly/inactive338), which lets
you control what happens to your Google account and all the data stored in it
when you die. You can choose to share your photos. emails, videos, documents
and more with a trusted friend or family member, or just delete the whole lot.
To
specify your, posthumous preferences, click the Setup button on the Inactive Account Manager page (you can also
access this at www.google.com/settings)
and set a timeout period, from three to 18 months. When Google detects that
your account hasn't been used for the specified amount of time, it will treat
the account as ‘inactive’ (you’ll receive an alert first, in case you’re still
alive and have merely switched to a different service). You can name up to 10
contacts to notify when this happens, and let them download your data from
individual services, including Blogger, Drive, Gmail, Google+, and YouTube.
You’ll need to provide phone numbers for each person, so they can be sent a
verification code to access your data.
Once
this is done (or if you've bypassed this step altogether because you don’t want
to share anything), you can ask Google to delete your inactive account. Click
Enable to turn on Inactive Account Manager.
