After you pass away, your Facebook profile stays up with your name and your photos on it. Nobody is looking after the profile. Scammers read obituaries and target Facebook profiles that nobody is looking after. When someone tells Facebook that you have passed away, Facebook either keeps the profile up as a memorial or deletes the profile. A setting you choose now decides whether Facebook keeps or deletes the profile.
When Facebook keeps a profile up as a memorial, Facebook's word for that profile is memorialized. The setting that decides whether Facebook keeps or deletes the profile is called Memorialization. The setting gives you two choices: name a legacy contact or choose Delete after death. A legacy contact is a Facebook friend you pick now who may look after the memorialized profile after you pass away. The friend can write a pinned post; a pinned post is a post fixed in place on the profile. The friend can change the profile picture and the cover photo. The friend can ask Facebook to remove the account. And if you allow it, the friend can download a copy of what you have shared on Facebook. If you choose Delete after death, Facebook deletes the account.
Before you start
- About ten minutes.
- A computer with Facebook open and signed in to your own profile. If you have made more than one profile on Facebook, sign in to your main profile.
- If you are naming a legacy contact, have that Facebook friend's name ready.
- Page 5 of the workshop worksheet. If you do not have the worksheet, use a sheet of paper that you keep with your important papers.
Choose what happens to your profile
The first four steps open the setting and are the same for everyone. After those four steps, do only the part under the heading for your choice. Then do the steps under For everyone.
Open the Memorialization setting
- Open Settings. On Facebook, find your profile picture at the top right and click it. Find Settings & privacy and click it. Find Settings and click it.
- Open Accounts Center. Find Accounts Center and click it.
- Open Account ownership and control. Find Manage accounts and click it. If Manage accounts is not on your screen, find Profiles and personal details and click it. Then find Account ownership and control and click it.
- Open Memorialization. Find Memorialization and click it. Then choose your profile. Not everyone sees this setting yet. If Memorialization is not on your screen, the setting may not have reached your account. You have not done anything wrong.
If you are naming a legacy contact
You must be 18 or older to name a legacy contact.
- Choose Memorialize account. Find Memorialize account and click it. Find Next and click it.
- Pick your friend. Type your friend's name. Find your friend's picture and click it. Then choose whether the friend may download a copy of what you have shared on Facebook.
- Save and tell your friend. Find Save and click it. Facebook then offers Send and Skip. To tell your friend now that you have named them, find Send and click it. If you would rather tell your friend yourself, find Skip and click it. Either way, your friend will be told when the profile is memorialized after you pass away.
If you are choosing Delete after death
- Choose Delete after death. Find Delete after death and click it. Find Next and click it to confirm. Once Facebook has proof that you have passed away, Facebook deletes the account completely, so tell your family that you chose Delete after death.
For everyone
- Write down your choice. Write down which choice you made and, if you named a friend, who the friend is. If you have the workshop worksheet, tick Memorialization settings on social accounts on page 5 and write the choice and the name there.
- Check that it worked. Do the first four steps on this page again to open Memorialization. Once memorialization is set up, one of the two choices must always be selected, and the selected choice should be the one you made. Facebook's page does not say how the screen shows which choice is selected, so we cannot say what you will see.
If you leave the setting blank, Facebook decides what happens to your profile.
What this does not do
- A legacy contact cannot log in to your account, cannot read your messages, and cannot add or remove friends.
- The setting covers your main Facebook profile only. The setting does not cover any additional profile you have made, Instagram or any other account. Instagram and other accounts have settings of their own.
- You cannot remove a legacy contact and leave the setting with nothing chosen; to remove a legacy contact without naming another friend, choose Delete after death.
- Naming a legacy contact or choosing Delete after death does not give anyone legal authority over anything outside Facebook.
If your screen looks different
Accounts are gradually moving from Accounts Center to Meta Account settings, so the names on the way to the setting may read differently from the names on this page. If the names on this page are not on your screen, search Facebook's Help Center for the words legacy contact; the Help Center is Facebook's own help pages. The Help Center page for legacy contact shows the current way to the setting. In the Facebook app on a phone, tap the three-line menu button to find the same Settings & privacy menu. In the app, tap where a step says click.
Sources
- Facebook: Add, change, or remove your legacy contact on Facebook, read on 18 October 2026.
- Facebook: What happens to your Facebook profile if you pass away, read on 18 October 2026.
- Facebook: About legacy contacts on Facebook, read on 18 October 2026.