Digital Life · Protect
Your paper documents survive a fire in a fireproof box. Your digital life needs the same thinking: copies that survive a locked account, a dead phone, or a stolen laptop.
What a locked account costs
A phone gets lost, an email account gets locked, or someone passes away, and the household discovers there was never a list of what accounts existed, no backup of the photos that only lived on one device, and no way in without the person who normally handled it.
None of this is complicated to fix in advance. It is a list, a few backup copies, and one page of paper kept with your other household documents. This page covers all three, and its natural home is inside the household binder you may already be building.
The account list
The list itself is not a security risk if it holds no passwords. It is simply a map, so a trusted person knows where to start.
List every account that would actually disrupt your household if it disappeared: email, banking, insurance, mortgage or rent, utilities, phone carrier, and any account holding identity documents or the only copies of family photos. For each one, record the account name, the login you use for it, and nothing else. The password itself belongs in your password manager, not on this page.
This is where the two-step recovery codes belong as well. When you turn on two-step verification, most services hand you a set of one-time backup codes for exactly the moment your phone is lost or broken. Print them or write them by hand, then store the page with your household documents. A code sitting only in a text message or a note on the same phone that just broke does not help you.
One other adult should be able to find this page. A list no one else knows exists protects nothing if you are the one who is unreachable.
The household version of 3-2-1
CISA's baseline backup guidance, written for businesses, scales down cleanly to a household: keep three copies of anything you cannot afford to lose, on two different kinds of storage, with at least one copy kept somewhere other than your house.[1]
3
The original on your phone or computer, plus two backups. A single backup is one accident away from being the only copy.
2
An external drive and a cloud backup service cover this well. If one type fails, such as a drive that dies, the other survives.
1
A cloud backup already satisfies this. A physical drive kept at a relative's house or a safe-deposit box also works.
What actually needs this treatment in a household is a short list: family photos, scanned identity documents, tax records, and anything a professional would call irreplaceable. Streaming a backup service automatically each night, then confirming once a year that a file actually opens, covers the whole system with almost no ongoing effort.
Adjustments
Tight budgets
A single external drive plus the free tier most phones already offer for photo backup covers the essentials for close to nothing.
Households with an older adult
Set up automatic cloud backup once, together, so it runs without needing to be remembered. Confirm with them once a year that it is still working.
Small businesses run from home
Business records deserve their own backup schedule, separate from personal photos, since tax and client records carry different consequences if lost.
Common mistakes
One backup that never gets tested. A backup you have never opened is a theory, not a plan. Open one file from it once a year.
Recovery codes saved only on the device they protect. If the phone breaks or is stolen, a code stored only in its notes app breaks with it. Paper, kept elsewhere, is the point.
A backup drive that lives next to the computer. A fire, flood, or theft takes both at once. At least one copy needs real distance.
An account list only one person can find. The point of the list is that someone else can find it without you.
Next steps
The passwords and two-step verification that generate the recovery codes this page stores.
Read the guide →
The paper household binder. This page is its digital half.
Build the binder →
The full section: protect, verify, and respond, at household pace.
Open the section →
This page was last reviewed in July 2026. Digital guidance changes faster than most preparedness topics. If that date is more than a year old, confirm key steps against the sources above before acting on them.
Enough for now
Look at this again once a year, or whenever a new account or device joins the household.