If you use a password manager, you have already done more than most people to protect your digital life. So it is reasonable to assume the "emergency access" or "legacy contact" feature your manager advertises will take care of your family when you are gone. Unfortunately, those features were designed for a narrower problem than the one you actually have.
What emergency access actually does
Across the major platforms, emergency access generally works like this: you nominate another user of the same product, they request access, and after a waiting period — during which you can deny the request — they are granted a copy of your vault. It is clever, but every word of that sentence hides a requirement.
- They must have their own account on the exact same platform
- They must have set it up correctly, in advance, while you were able to approve it
- Their access can be revoked — by you, or by a lapsed subscription, on either side
- It typically covers the vault as a whole, with little control over who sees what
The subscription trap
Emergency access is often a paid-tier feature. If your plan lapses, or your nominated contact's plan lapses, the bridge quietly disappears — usually without anyone noticing until the moment it is needed. A plan that depends on two separate subscriptions both staying active for an unknown number of years is a fragile plan.
The "same platform" problem
Your spouse, your lawyer, and your adult children probably do not all use the same password manager you do — and asking each of them to create and maintain an account on your platform, indefinitely, is a big ask. The more people who must adopt your specific tool, the lower the odds your plan survives contact with reality.
What a dead man's switch does differently
A purpose-built digital-legacy tool starts from the opposite assumption: that the people who need access will not be power users, may use any device, and may need access years from now. The differences that matter:
- Trustees sign in with their own login on any device — no shared platform requirement
- You choose which secrets each trustee receives, not just "all or nothing"
- Access is gated by a verifiable trigger — inactivity or a death certificate — not a one-off setup that can silently break
- Everything is encrypted in your browser, so the provider can never read your secrets while you are alive
Use both — for what each is good at
This is not an argument to abandon your password manager. It is excellent at the daily job of generating and filling strong passwords. It is simply not an estate-planning tool. Keep the manager for everyday security, and add a dedicated dead man's switch for the handful of things your family will genuinely need: the master password, the recovery codes, the crypto keys, the documents.
The bottom line
Emergency access is better than nothing, but "better than nothing" is a low bar for something as important as everything your family will need after you are gone. If your plan can be broken by a lapsed subscription or a relative who uses a different app, it is worth upgrading to one that cannot.