How to preserve deceased's digital footprint (files, social, cloud)?
April 28, 2018 2:28 PM   Subscribe

My husband passed January 2017. I want to save as much as his digital life as possible, but don't exactly know how. I have access to some things, and others I don't. I've been afraid to do much at the moment because I don't want to accidentally lose access to what I have.

I have his old mobile phone, which has given me access to some things like his gmail and google docs because they're already logged in. His phone doesn't have a pin anymore, his death was a suicide so the police did something to remove the pin permanently. (It may have been just disabling after I provided the pin. Heh.) I've accessed his gmail via the gmail app, and google docs via the docs app.

The phone still had service last I checked 2 months ago. It was a company phone and they haven't (hadn't?) turned service off. TBH, they're a big company and probably don't realize it - my husband one remarked at work that there were a ton of mobile devices in boxes that still had service. It has his work phone as the phones main "number", but he also has his personal number pointing to it, somehow. I'd like to preserve his personal number if possible. I don't know why, just seems like I should.

I have a windows laptop that has a bunch of his passwords in an excel file on the desktop. It's ether windows 8 or windows 10. After his death, I did have access to it via a pin that he and I used to use. A few months after his death, I straight up forgot the pin, and never knew the password. I have no idea why I forgot it, it was a number that I had used myself and knew well. I kinda assume it was grief/trauma related because I have no business forgetting it. Anyway, I haven't tried anything else to get into the computer because I'm afraid I might accidentally lock it, or lose the contents, including the excel file with the password. I don't know what else is on the laptop I might want.

I have accessed his facebook, and am set up as the person that manages his account now that he's passed, but that is the only social media account I've done that to.

Of particular interest to me is preserving his google docs account, but also reading and viewing changes/updates. He left his suicide note there, and a few other things that seem to be something he intended for me or others to read after his death. I've read some, but I want to see more. I'm afraid of losing those pieces though.

I've considered resetting his gmail password since I have his phone and think I should be able to do easily, and that will give me access to a lot of other password reset options. But haven't because I'm terrified I'll lose all access somehow, so I've been in this state of holding.

He has other social media presences, I haven't begun to think about how to deal with those or even what they all are. He has twitter and a tumblr, I know that. not sure beyond that.

Would love some thoughts on how to deal with these things, both the technical and the logistics.
posted by [insert clever name here] to Computers & Internet (10 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 


This FPP from last month is actually about privacy concerns but discusses extracting copies of all of your data at once from Facebook and Google, and so may address some of your specific questions.

Secondly, this doesn't apply to most of the things you asked about above, but you can install one of the browser add-ons mentioned here and if you see a public web page about him you'd like to save—one that isn't behind a password—you can just press the button to add any page you're looking at to the Internet Archive (which is also public, so anyone will be able to look up the copy you've saved if they know where it is.)

It doesn't always work, because organizations like large national newspapers can make a request to the Archive for it to not re-publish their content; but it usually works well for exactly the sorts of web sites you'd expect might disappear in the future—articles in local newspapers, a bio on an employer's web site or a community group he was part of, blogs he contributed to, announcements of awards he received, etc.

I'm sorry for your loss.
posted by XMLicious at 3:15 PM on April 28, 2018


You can also go through and individually share the files from google docs with your account if there's not too many.
posted by aniola at 3:29 PM on April 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh, as far as the laptop goes: the first thing I'd try, myself, would be to boot it from a live USB or a live CD and then as long as the hard drive isn't encrypted you should be able to grab those files on the desktop. Creating the live USB or live CD can require some technical know-how, though.
posted by XMLicious at 3:29 PM on April 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Wikihow has a couple user-friendly options that might work for accessing the computer.

1. You might be able to use his gmail or phone to reset the computer's password if it's set up for that.

2. You should be able to get admin access by booting into safe mode, and can change his password from there. This option looks easiest to me.
posted by aniola at 3:36 PM on April 28, 2018


With gmail, google docs/notes/drive, Facebook, and a lot of social media accounts, there is an option to download the account contents as an archive. I'd suggest you do that first. You can also hit "print screen" on anything you'd like to preserve as it, and "paste" into any most photo editing software and then save it as an image file.
For his phone, you can take screenshots and then save the image files. Also if it's an android, you can plug it into a pc or laptop and open the device with file explorer, and copy the DCIM folder. This will have all of his photos, edited copies. downloaded files and screenshots in it.
Add your phone number and email as secondary or recovery contacts on all accounts.
Save everything to a pc or laptop and organize the files.
For storage, a good idea is to save to both an online storage account (set up a new one that has enough gb of storage for everything) and to an external hard drive, (Passport drives are great and can be encrypted and password protected), and keep it in a safe place where it won't get damaged, stolen or lost, so you have 2 copies accessible, in case you lose access to the online one, or something happens to your physical one.
Write down all of the accounts you can find with usernames and passwords, recovery questions and hints, and all info he included like name, birthday, phone, address, email, etc., make a copy, and keep both in safe places. You'll need this info to recover the account if it does get lost.
If you do lose access to any accounts, account recovery though contacting help is a long and annoying process, but if you have this info, his Id and certificates, it should be no issue at all..
Once you have everything downloaded, saved and backed up, then you can start resetting passwords and not worry.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
posted by OnefortheLast at 4:37 PM on April 28, 2018


I’m so sorry. This isn’t really helpful with retrieving information, but, to feel a bit safer it might help to simply take screen shots or even photos of the screen with another cell phone. So whenever you see something, you can take and image and not be afraid to lose it forever. Just a back up idea.
posted by MountainDaisy at 8:14 PM on April 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


I’m sorry for your loss.

For the laptop, this sounds like something you should ask for professional help with.

As a whole, this task seems emotionally difficult. Im a very techy person and I think this would feel too close-to-home for me to handle, if I were in your shoes - even if I were 100% confident in my process, each click of the mouse would start to feel heavy and risky and scary. Good job starting the process by asking this question - I think your next step is to find someone to help with each piece.

The laptop can go to a professional.
For the Google account, can you put out a call on social media for a technology-savvy friend to support you in backing up files? It may mean logging in to Drive, copying everything over to another account as a backup, And THEN changing the password. I recommend you have a friend do it who isn’t as emotionally connected to the files and will be able to make clear-minded decisions about how to process the work.

Honestly, there are probably 30 different ways to approach the four or five challenges here. It sounds like what you need is to have someone help you choose a way, and then make it happen for you.
posted by samthemander at 11:28 PM on April 28, 2018


I'm sorry for your loss.

A friend did this after her husband died. She now says she wishes she hadn't.

Maybe just let go? At least think about it.
posted by james33 at 4:39 AM on April 29, 2018


There are forensic computer analysts and investigators who are the experts at accessing this type of information for litigation and for law enforcement. There would be a cost of course but this type of expert is the safest way for you to handle these multiple difficult tasks. I'm sorry you have to go through this.
posted by JimN2TAW at 3:11 PM on May 1, 2018


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