What is a Digital Letter of Wishes?
A practical guide to one of the most useful documents you can leave behind.
A modern take on a long-standing idea
A letter of wishes is a personal document that sits alongside your will. It tells the people who matter — your family, your executors, your trustees — what you would like to happen, why, and how. It carries your voice into moments where you can’t be there to speak for yourself.
A digital letter of wishes is the same idea, brought up to date. Instead of a printed page locked in a drawer or filed with a solicitor, it lives securely online — ready to be updated whenever life changes, and accessible to the right people at the right time.
Most people don’t leave one. Not because they don’t want to, but because traditional letters of wishes are easy to forget about. They get written once, tucked away, and never revisited. The digital version solves that: you can keep it current, write everything your loved ones will need in one secure place, and decide exactly who can see it.
How it differs from a will
A will is a legal document. It directs how your estate — your money, property and possessions — is distributed after you die. It must be witnessed, signed and stored properly to be valid. Once written, changes usually mean drafting a new will or codicil with a solicitor.
A letter of wishes is not legally binding. It sits alongside your will and explains the things a will isn’t built to carry: your reasoning, your preferences, your personal messages, and the practical details your executors and family will actually need to act.
The two work together. Your will says what happens to your estate. Your letter of wishes explains why, and helps the people you’ve trusted carry out your intentions in the way you would have wanted.
A few examples of what a letter of wishes can cover that a will typically doesn’t:
- Funeral preferences — burial or cremation, music, readings, who to invite
- Guidance for trustees on how you’d like a discretionary trust used over time
- Personal messages to children, partners, friends or colleagues
- Where to find your accounts, subscriptions, insurance policies and digital assets
- What to do with social media profiles, email accounts and online services
- Care instructions for pets
- The reasoning behind any unusual or sensitive decisions in your will
Because a letter of wishes isn’t legally binding, it can be updated as often as you like, without a solicitor. That flexibility is exactly why a digital format works so well for it.
What to include in a digital letter of wishes
There’s no fixed format. The point is to leave clarity for the people who’ll need it. Most digital letters of wishes cover some combination of the following:
Practical information
- Where to find your will and who holds the original
- Your solicitor, accountant and financial adviser’s details
- Bank accounts, ISAs, pensions, investments and insurance policies
- Mortgage, loan and credit account details
- Utility providers and recurring subscriptions
- Property deeds, vehicle documents and key contracts
Digital life
- Email accounts and how you’d like them handled
- Social media profiles — memorialise, archive or close
- Cloud storage, photo libraries and important files
- Domain names, websites, and any online businesses
- Cryptocurrency wallets and recovery information
Wishes and preferences
- Funeral or memorial preferences
- Organ donation wishes
- Charitable causes you’d like remembered
- How you’d like personal possessions distributed
- Guidance for trustees about beneficiaries
Personal messages
- Letters to family members
- Stories, memories and family history
- Words for a partner, children or grandchildren
- Messages for friends or colleagues
You don’t need to include everything at once. Most people start with the practical information — the things their family would struggle to find without help — and add the more personal sections over time.
Storing a digital letter of wishes securely
The whole point of a letter of wishes is that it reaches the right people at the right time. Which means storage matters as much as content. A document no one can find — or that the wrong person finds too easily — isn’t doing its job.
A few questions worth asking about any storage method:
- Privacy. Can the company read your information? With most cloud providers, the answer is yes — even if they say they don’t.
- Access control. Who can open it, and how do they prove they’re the right person?
- Updates. Can you keep it current without ringing your solicitor every time?
- Discovery. When the time comes, will the people you’ve named actually know it exists, and how to reach it?
- Longevity. Will the storage outlast you? What happens if the provider closes down?
A printed letter at home solves privacy but fails on updates, access and discovery. A solicitor’s safe is reliable but inflexible. A folder in a generic cloud account is convenient but can be read by the provider, accessed by anyone with your password, and quietly deleted if your account lapses.
Tidy Affairs is a perfect place to keep a document like this. Your documents are end-to-end encrypted and held inside secure vaults, which means only you and the people you trust can read them — not even we can. You decide who your key holders are, and a vault only opens for them once they’ve verified themselves and answered a security question you’ve set. You can keep your letter current for as long as you like, and the people you’ve trusted will know exactly where to go when they need it.
You can explore the full set of features, or see what’s included with the Individual plan.
Common questions
Is a digital letter of wishes legally binding?
No — and that’s the point. A letter of wishes is guidance, not law. It carries your voice and your reasoning into the decisions your executors and trustees will make, but it doesn’t override your will. If you want something to be legally enforceable, it belongs in your will.
Do I need a solicitor to write one?
Not at all. Letters of wishes are written by the person, in their own words. A solicitor can help if you’d like guidance — particularly if your situation involves trusts or unusual circumstances — but you don’t need one to write or update your letter.
How often should I update it?
Whenever life changes. A new partner, a new child, a house move, a new job, a new account — any of these might mean a paragraph or two needs revisiting. Many people review theirs once a year, or whenever they update their will.
Who should know it exists?
The people who’ll need to act on it. That usually means your executors, your closest family, and any professionals who’ll be involved — your solicitor, accountant, or financial adviser. With Tidy Affairs, you choose your key holders directly and they’re notified as part of setting up.
What’s the difference between a digital letter of wishes and an ‘in case of emergency’ document?
Considerable overlap, different framing. An ICE document is usually short, focused on contacts and immediate practicalities. A letter of wishes is broader — practical information, yes, but also preferences, personal messages, and the reasoning behind your decisions. A digital letter of wishes can absorb both.