Western Australia · You cannot get into their email

Google Inactive Account Manager

Google treats incapacity the same as death: without prior setup it will refuse family access even with legal documents. Inactive Account Manager lets the account holder nominate someone to receive access after a chosen period of inactivity. It must be configured by the parent, from their own account, while they can still do it. Accounts also auto-delete after long inactivity — and if that email is the recovery address for their banking and myGov, losing it locks you out of everything downstream. But Inactive Account Manager only hands over the account after months of silence — it does nothing for the everyday problem of reading their mail now, while they are still here but can no longer manage it. There is a way to do that without ever holding their password. There is also an easier-looking way most families reach for first that quietly breaks the account's security from the inside.