Facebook Lets You Choose Who Manages Your Account When You Die

Facebook is making it easier to plan for your online life after you die. The social networking service is allowing its members to designate someone to manage parts of their accounts posthumously. Users also have the option to choose to have their presence deleted entirely.

Facebook users can now pick a "legacy contact" to post on their page after they die.

The person you choose to manage your account won't be notified of your choice until your Facebook account is memorialized. But you can send them a message before. Facebook will also send you an annual reminder of your pick. This could help if the person dies before you do, for example, or if your friendship cools as the years pass, ABC News noted.

Upon giving additional permission, the assigned contact will be able to download and archive your photos, posts and profile information after you die. However, your private messages will be inaccessible. Also, they wont be able to sign-in as you and they have to use their own credentials.

Facebook, which has nearly 1.4 billion users, won't say how many accounts are memorialized, though Facebook product manager Vanessa Callison-Burch said there have been "hundreds of thousands" of requests from loved ones to do so.

If you don't do anything, when Facebook finds out you've passed, it will simply freeze your account and leave posts and pictures at the privacy settings you determined.