Google: how to plan the future of your account in the event of death?

Thinking about what will happen after death is usually not very pleasant for most people. Funeral, succession : most people wait until the last part of their life to address these issues.

As far as virtual life is concerned, it’s even worse: a very large majority of Internet users do not think about what will become of their data when it disappears. Unfortunately, this can then sometimes lead to difficulties for the family or loved ones who would like to recover and/or delete personal data of the deceased.

Google, more and more often confronted with this situation, has set up a procedure to define very precisely what happens to the personal data of individuals in the event of prolonged inactivity. Futura explains in detail how to define an action plan from an Android smartphone.

How do I access the future planning of my account?

First, go to your smartphone settings.

In the settings, now look for “Google” in the menu and tap on it.

You arrive on the main page of your Google account, press “Manage your Google account”.

Once in your account, scroll the menu to the right, then tap on “Data and personalization”.

Now scroll down and go to the “Plan Your Account Future” section.

How to plan the future of your Google account?

You are now in the inactive account manager. Tap “Get Started” to begin setting up your account’s future schedule.

You must first define after how long the measures you are going to put in place must be triggered, knowing that Google will contact you one month before the end of this period. By default, this is three months. To change it, do a pressure on the edit delay icon.

If you change the time frame before the plan is implemented, you have the choice between 3, 6, 12 and 18 months. Press “Save” to validate the duration selected.

Now you need to add your phone number, because Google will send you text messages to ensure that you are inactive. Go to the “Add a phone number” section, choose the number already communicated to Google or define a new one, then press “Select”. You will also be contacted by email in your inbox. gmail in case of inactivity.

Back on the main schedule page, tap “Next” to proceed to the next part of the setup.

You are now in the “Choose who to notify and what data to share” section. Tap “Add a person”.

Enter the email address of your contact, then confirm by pressing “Next”. You can repeat the operation for as many contacts as you wish.

Now you need to define the data you want to share with your contact. Explore the list of data categories and check the boxes of your choice. Tap “Select All” to check them all automatically. Press “Next” to continue.

You have the possibility to enter the phone number of your contact so that he confirms his identity before being able to download your data. In addition, if you check the box “Add a personal message”, you can write a few lines to his attention.

Press “Save” to continue the procedure.

Back on the main plan page, tap “Next” to proceed to the next step.

If you wish, you can now set up an automatic response that will be sent to people who try to contact you once your account is inactive. Fill in the subject and the message, then decide whether everyone will receive your automatic reply or only your contacts. In the second case, check the corresponding empty box.
Press “Save” to move on.

Press “Next” to get to the last part of the planning.

The last decision you make is whether your Google account should be deleted for inactivity or not. If you want this to be the case, the cursor must be placed on the right and be color blue.
Now press the “Review plan” button.

A summary of everything you have planned appears on the screen. Press “Confirm Plan” to complete the process. Note that it is possible to change your choices later.

Fortunately, you are still in this world for a long time and it may even be you who could save lives. Remember that a application free like Staying Alive allows you to find the nearest person who knows how to perform cardiac massage and offers a map of the location of defibrillators.