When a member of our family died, my wife became the executor. The legal documents and instructions were in place. Nobody had planned for the phone, the laptop or the online accounts.
Passwords we found on paper eventually got us into a laptop. They did not get us into Gmail. Gmail wanted a sign-in code, the code went to a phone that was locked, and unlocking the phone required its PIN.
We never recovered Facebook. The account was taken over, and someone tried to run a GoFundMe from it. We posted warnings from the account, but we never got it back.
Not every family goes through this exact sequence. But a legal plan alone doesn't necessarily give a family a usable plan for the digital side. That means the phones and laptops, the sign-in codes, the ways to access each account, and the social accounts with their photos and posts. An executor's legal authority does not change each company's own rules. Even when a company's rules allow it, getting in can still depend on a locked phone or a sign-in code.
I started FortifiedWall to help you plan for your phones and accounts, so your family does not have to guess how to get into them. See the five stages.