Facebook now lets you choose who will manage your Facebook account after you die. The Legacy Contact setting lets you designate a family member or friend who will be able to access your account after you die.

Up until now, Facebook only offered a Memorialization Request, where you could let Facebook know when a user passed away. Once Facebook verified through an obituary or news article that the person had died, the account became “memorialized.”

Now, with the new Legacy Contact feature, Facebook is taking the memorialization process a step further. In the security settings menu, you can designate a person who will be able to control certain aspects of your page.  Or you can choose to have your account deleted after you pass away.

When an account has been memorialized, a Legacy Contact is able to do the following:

• Pin posts to the top of the page
• Respond to incoming friend requests
• Control the profile and header images
• Download an archive of your photos and posts

Your Legacy Contact can’t:

• Log into your account
• Remove or change past posts, photos, and other things you have shared on your Timeline
• Read messages you’ve sent to other friends
• Remove any of your friends

“Memorialized” accounts will now have a “remembering” label before the name to let others know it’s an account of someone who has passed away.

The Legacy Contact setting is available now to users in the U.S. and will become available in more countries later.

Learn more on the Facebook page What will happen to my account if I pass away?

Social media experts recommend you have a social media will where you provide instructions on what you want done with your online content after your demise.  You may want some deleted and other content to continue for the benefit of your family or others. In your will, you can name an executor and provide them your social media accounts and passwords.