Facebook Memorialized Account: Legacy Contact, Memorializing or Removing a Profile

Meta lets you choose either a legacy contact to look after your memorialized main profile, or to have your account permanently deleted after you pass away.

Mobile browser and Facebook Lite: tap Menu in the top right, then below Settings & Privacy tap Settings, and follow the same Accounts Center steps. Meta says you can currently only add a Facebook friend as your legacy contact. Age: Meta’s legacy contact page says you must be 18 or older to select a legacy contact, while other Meta text says you can’t if you’re a minor and that the age varies by region. Meta also says a minor who chooses Delete after death can’t change it until they’re no longer a minor.

Meta says you can add, change or remove your legacy contact at any time, but once memorialization is initiated, you must always have one of the two options selected.

1. Open Memorialization and select your account, using the steps in Fix 1.
2. New legacy contact: click Memorialize account > Next, then select your legacy contact. From there you can choose a new one.
3. Remove your legacy contact without choosing a new one: Meta says to select Delete after death. This deletes your account immediately and completely once Meta receives proof of death.
4. Switch off Delete after death: Meta says you must select a legacy contact to do this.

Meta says that if neither option is selected, anyone with the proper documents can request to memorialize your account after you pass away.

Meta says it’s its policy to memorialize the account of someone who has passed away if a valid request is received, and that memorializing also helps keep the account secure by preventing anyone from logging into it.

1. Open Meta’s memorialization request page (external site, opens in a new tab).
2. Follow the instructions on that page.
3. Once memorialized, the word Remembering shows next to their name. See what a memorialized profile looks like.

Meta says that if the person was the only admin of a Page, the Page will be removed once a valid memorialization request is received, and a group where they were the only admin will be paused. Our advice: if the Page or group matters to you, check who its admins are before you send the request. If you’d like another place for people to share memories, Meta suggests creating a group.

Meta says Facebook friends with the correct documentation may request the removal of a loved one’s account. Its removal page says the documentation must confirm you’re an immediate family member or executor of the account holder.

1. Read Meta’s page on requesting removal of a deceased family member’s account (external site, opens in a new tab) and gather the documents below.
2. Fastest, Meta says: a scan or photo of your loved one’s death certificate.
3. No death certificate? Send one proof of authority (power of attorney; birth certificate if the person was a minor; last will and testament; or estate letter) and one proof that they passed away (obituary or memorial card).
4. Make sure the details on the documents match the information on their account, and cover up personal information Meta doesn’t need, such as a Social Security number.
5. Once you have the documents, send Meta your request (external site, opens in a new tab).

If the person is alive but medically incapacitated and can’t use Facebook, Meta says it might be able to help you remove their account (external site, opens in a new tab), and that if their condition is reversible it can deactivate the account instead, so they can reopen it when they recover.

Meta says a legacy contact can manage a memorialized profile, and can pin a tribute post that stays at the top of it.

1. Go to the memorialized profile and click Manage in the bottom right of the cover photo.
2. Use the menu on the left to add a pinned post, respond to new friend requests, or change the profile picture and cover photo.
3. Pin a tribute post: write a post on their timeline, click Options (the three dots) and select Pin to Top. It stays at the top until you change or remove it.
4. Change or remove the pinned post: go to the post, click Options and select Unpin from Top, Edit Post or Delete.

Meta says a legacy contact can also request removal of the memorialized profile, or ask questions about being a legacy contact, through a Meta form. Don’t want to be someone’s legacy contact? Meta suggests telling them in a message or in person, and says everything a legacy contact can do is optional. Meta describes these steps for the computer.

Meta says no one can log into a memorialized profile, that it can’t provide login information for someone else’s account even in these circumstances, and that logging into another person’s account is always against its policies.

1. If you were chosen as the legacy contact, Meta says you can do certain things for the memorialized profile, but you can’t log into it either (see what a legacy contact can and can’t do).
2. If there’s no legacy contact, Meta says the memorialized profile can’t be changed. You can still request removal if you have the correct documentation.
3. Our advice: don’t pay anyone who offers to get you in. See account recovery scams.

Meta says not everyone can access this setting in Meta Account or Accounts Center at this time.

1. Switch to your main profile: Meta says a legacy contact can only be chosen for your main profile, not additional profiles.
2. Look in Meta Account settings as well as Accounts Center: Meta says you may see either while it updates people to Meta Accounts.
3. Check under Personal details (or Profiles and personal details) > Account ownership and control.
4. Our advice: update the Facebook app and check again later.